WORKS  ON  FRENCH  HISTORY 

DURING  THE 

REVOLUTION  AND  NAPOLEONIC  WARS 

Published  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  New  York, 


Alison's  History  of  Europe. 

FIRST  SERIES.  From  the  Commencement  of  the  French  Revolution,  in  1789,  to  the 
Restoration  of  the  Bourbons  in  1815.  In  addition  to  the  Notes  on  Chapter  LXXVI., 
which  correct  the  errbrs  of  the  original  work  concerning  the  United  States,  a  copious 
Analytical  Index  has  been  appended  to  this  American  Edition.  SECOND  SERIES.  From 
the  Fall  of  Napoleon,  in  1815,  to  the  Accession  of  Louis  Napoleon,  in  1852.  A  New 
Series.  By  Sir  ARCHIBALD  ALISON.  8  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $16  oo :  Sheep,  $20  oo;  Half 
Morocco,  $34  oo. 

Abbott's  French  Revolution. 

The  French  Revolution  of  1780,  as  viewed  in  the  Light  of  Republican  Institutions.  By 
JOHN  S.  C.  ABBOTT.  With  100  Illustrations.  8vo,  Cloth,  $5  oo ;  Sheep,  $5  50 ;  Half 
Calf,  $7  25. 

Abbott's  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 

The  History  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  By  JOHN  S.  C.  ABBOTT.  With  Maps,  Wood- 
cuts, and  Portraits  on  Steel.  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $10  oo;  Sheep,  $11  oo;  Half  Calf, 
$14  5°- 

Abbott's  Napoleon  at  St.  Selena; 

Or,  Interesting  Anecdotes  and  Remarkable  Conversations  of  the  Emperor  during  the 
Five  and  a  Half  Years  of  his  Captivity.  Collected  from  the  Memorials  of  Las  Casas, 
O'  Meara,  Montholon,  Antommarchi,  and  others.  By  JOHN  S.  C.  ABBOTT.  With  Il- 
lustrations. 8vo,  Cloth,  $5  oo ;  Sheep,  $5  50 ;  Half  Calf,  $7  25. 

Carlyle's  French  Revolution. 

History  of  the  French  Revolution.  By  THOMAS  CARLYLK.  2  vols.,  i2mo,  Cloth,  $3  50 ; 
Half  Calf,  $7  oo. 

De  Tocqueville's  French  Revolution. 

The  Old  Re'gime  and  the  Revolution.  By  ALEXIS  DE  TOCQUEVILLB,  of  the  Academic 
Franchise,  Author  of  "  Democracy  in  America. "  Translated  by  JOHN  BONNBR.  i2mo, 
Cloth,  $i  50. 


Works  on  French  History. 


The  Bourbon  Prince. 

The  History  of  the  Royal  Dauphin,  Louis  XVII.  of  France.  By  ROBERT  TOMBS, 
M.D.  Illustrated.  i6mo,  Cloth,  75  cents. 

TJie  Student's  France. 

A  History  of  France  from  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Establishment  of  the  Second  Em- 
pire in  1852.  Illustrated.  Large  izmo,  Cloth,  $2  oo. 

Gleia's  Battle  of  Waterloo. 

A  True  Story  of  the  Battle  of  Waterloo.    By  Rev.  G.  R.  GLHIG.     i2mo,  Cloth,  $1  50. 

Lamartinefs  Girondists. 

History  of  the  Girondists ;  or,  Personal  Memoirs  of  the  Patriots  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. By  A.  DB  LAMAKTINE.  From  Unpublished  Sources.  3  vols.,  izmo,  Cloth,  $4  50. 

Miss  Pardoe's  Episodes  of  French  History. 

During  the  Consulate  and  the  First  Empire.    By  Miss  PARDOE.     12  mo,  Cloth,  $i  50. 

Lockhart's  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 

The  Life  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  By  J.  G.  LOCKHART.  With  Portraits.  2  vols., 
i8mo,  Cloth,  $i  50. 

Beauchesn^s  Louis  'XVII. 

Louis  XVII.  His  Life — his  Sufferings — his  Death:  the  Captivity  of  the  Royal  Family 
in  the  Temple.  By  A.  DE  BEAVCHESNE.  Translated  and  Edited  by  W.  HAZLITT,  Esq. 
Embellished  with  Vignettes,  Autographs,,  and  Plans..  2  vols.,  iSmo,  Cloth,  $4  oo. 

Beaumarchais  and  his  Times. 

Sketches  of  French  Society  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  from  unpublished  Documents. 
By  Louis  D.  LOMENIH.  Translated  by  HENRY  S.  EDWARDS.  i2mo,  Cloth,  $i  50. 

Vane9 8  Peninsular  War. 

The  Story  of  the  Peninsular  War.  By  General  CHARLES  W.  VANE,  Marquis  of  Lon- 
donderry, &c,  i2mo,  Cloth,  $i  50. 

Memes's  Josephine. 

Memoirs  of  the  Empress  Josephine.  By  JOHN  S.  MEMES,  LL.D.  i8mo,  Cloth,  75 
cents. 


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/ 


MARIE    ANTOINETTE. 


THE  LIFE 


OF 


MARIE  ANTOINETTE, 


QUEEN  OF  FRANCE. 


BY  CHARLES  DUKE  YONGE, 

REGIUS  PROFESSOR   OF  MODERN  HISTORY  AND   ENGLISH   LITERATURE  IN  QUEEN'S   COLLKGB, 

BELFAST;  AUTHOR  or  "THE  HISTORY  OF  TEX  BRITISH  NAVY,"  ETC 


NEW    YORK: 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS,   PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN    SQUARE. 

1876. 


PREFACE. 


THE  principal  authorities  for  the  following  work  arc  the  four  vol- 
umes of  Correspondence  published  by  M.  Arneth,  and  the  six  vol- 
umes published  by  M.  Feuillet  de  Conches.  M.  Arneth's  two  collec- 
tions* contain  not  only  a  number  of  letters  which  passed  between 
the  queen,  her  mother  the  Empress-queen  (Maria  Teresa),  and  her 
brothers  Joseph  and  Leopold,  who  successively  became  emperors 
after  the  death  of  their  father;  but  also  a  regular  series  of  letters 
from  the  imperial  embassador  at  Paris,  the  Count  Mercy  d'Argen- 
teau,  which  may  almost  be  said  to  form  a  complete  history  of  the 
court  of  France,  especially  in  all  the  transactions  in  which  Marie 
Antoinette,  whether  as  dauphiness  or  queen,  was  concerned,  till  the 
death  of  Maria  Teresa,  at  Christmas,  1780.  The  correspondence 
with  her  two  brothers,  the  emperors  Joseph  and  Leopold,  only 
ceases  with  the  death  of  the  latter  in  March,  1792. 

The  collection  published  by  M.  Feuillet  de  Conchesf  has  been 
vehemently  attacked,  as  containing  a  series  of  clever  forgeries  rath- 
er than  of  genuine  letters.  And  there  does  seem  reason  to  believe 
that  in  a  few  instances,  chiefly  in  the  earlier  portion  of  the  corre- 
spondence, the  critical  acuteness  of  the  editor  was  imposed  upon, 
and  that  some  of  the  letters  inserted  were  not  written  by  the  persons 
alleged  to  be  the  authors.  But  of  the  majority  of  the  letters  there 
seems  no  solid  ground  for  questioning  the  authenticity.  Indeed,  in 
the  later  and  more  important  portion  of  the  correspondence,  that 
which  belongs  to  the  period  after  the  death  of  the  Empress-queen, 
the  genuineness  of  the  Queen's  letters  is  continually  supported  by 
the  collection  of  M.  Arneth,  who  has  himself  published  many  of  them, 
having  found  them  in  the  archives  at  Vienna,  where  M.  F.  de  Conches 
had  previously  copied  them,J  and  who  refers  to  others,  the  publica- 

*  One  entitled  "  Marie-Antoinette,  correspondance  secrete  entre  Marie- 
The"r£se  et  le  Comte  Mercy  d'Argenteau,  avec  des  lettres  de  Marie-The'rese 
et  de  Marie- Antoinette."  (The  edition  referred  to  in  this  work  is  the  great- 
ly enlarged  second  edition  in  three  volumes,  published  at  Paris,  1875.)  The 
second  is  entitled  "  Marie-Antoinette,  Joseph  II.,  und  Leopold  II,"  publish- 
ed at  Leipsic,  1866. 

t  Entitled  "Louis  XVI.,  Marie- Antoinette,  et  Madame  Elizabeth,"  in  six 
volumes,  published  at  intervals  from- 1864  to  1873. 

J  In  his  "Nouveau  Lundi,"  March  5th,  1866,  M.  Sainte-Beuve  challenged 
M.  Feuillet  de  Conches  to  a  more  explicit  defense  of  the  authenticity  of  his 
collection  than  he  had  yet  vouchsafed ;  complaining,  with  some  reason,  that 


2O-O-— r-  r^t-^. 
&z !  598 


6  PREFACE. 

tion  of  which  did  not  come  within  his  own  plan.  M.  Feuillet  do 
Conches'  work  also  contains  narratives  of  some  of  the  most  impor- 
tant transactions  after  the  commencement  of  the  Revolution,  which 
are  of  great  value,  as  having  been  compiled  from  authentic  sources. 
Besides  these  collections,  the  author  has  consulted  the  lives  of 
Marie  Antoinette  by  Montjoye,  Lafont  d'Aussonne,  Chambrier,  and 
the  MM.  Goncourt ;  "  La  Vraie  Marie  Antoinette  "  of  M.  Lescure  ;  the 
Memoirs  of  Mme.  Campan,  Clery,  Hue,  the  Duchesse  d'Angoulfime, 
Bertram!  de  Moleville  ("Memoires  Particuliers"),the  Comtede  Tilly, 
the  Baron  de  Besenval,  the  Marquis  de  la  Fayette,  the  Marquise  de 
Cr6quy,  the  Princesse  Lamballc;  the  "Souvenirs  de  Quarante  Ans,"by 
Mile,  de  Tourzel;  the  "Diary"  of  M.  de  Viel  Castcl ;  the  correspond- 
ence of  Mine,  du  Deffand  ;  the  account  of  the  affair  of  the  necklace 
by  M.  de  Campardon ;  the  very  valuable  correspondence  between  the 
Count  de  la  Marck  and  Mirabeau,  which  also  contains  a  narrative  by 
the  Count  de  la  Marck  of  many  very  important  incidents ;  Dumont's 
"  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau ;"  "  Beaumarchais  et  son  Temps,"  by  M.  de 
Lomdnie;  "Gustavus  III.  et  la  Cour  de  Paris,"  by  M.  Geoffrey;  the 
first  seven  volumes  of  the  Histoire  dc  la  Terreur,  by  M.  Mortimer 
Ternaux ;  Dr.  Moore's  journal  of  his  visit  to  France,  and  view  of  the 
French  Revolution ;  and  a  great  number  of  other  works  in  which 
there  is  cursory  mention  of  different  incidents,  especially  in  the  ear- 
lier part  of  the  Revolution ;  such  as  the  journals  of  Arthur  Young, 
Madame  dc  StaeTs  elaborate  treatise  on  the  Revolution ;  several  ar- 
ticles in  the  last  series  of  the  "Causeries  de  Lundi,"  by  Sainte-Beuve, 
and  others  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  etc.,  etc.,  and  to  those  may 
of  course  be  added  the  regular  histories  of  Lacretelle,  Sismondi,  Mar- 
tin, and  Lamartine's  "  History  of  the  Girondins." 

his  delay  in  answering  the  charges  brought  against  it  "  was  the  more  vexa- 
tious because  his  collection  was  only  attacked  in  part,  and  in  many  points 
remained  solid  and  valuable."  And  this  challenge  elicited  from  M.  F.  de 
Conches  a  very  elaborate  explanation  of  the  sources  from  which  he  pro- 
cured his  documents,  which  he  published  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes, 
July  15th,  1866,  and  afterward  in  the  Preface  to  his  fourth  volume.  That  in  a 
collection  of  nearly  a  thousand  documents  he  may  have  occasionally  been 
too  credulous  in  accepting  cleverly  executed  forgeries  as  genuine  letters  is 
possible,  and  even  probable ;  in  fact,  the  present  writer  regards  it  as  certain. 
But  the  vast  majority,  including  all  those  of  the  greatest  value,  can  not  be 
questioned  without  imputing  to  him  a  guilty  knowledge  that  they  were 
forgeries — a  deliberate  bad  faith,  of  which  no  one,  it  is  believed,  has  ever  ac- 
cused him. 

It  may  be  added  that  it  is  only  from  the  letters  of  this  later  period  that 
any  quotations  are  made  in  the  following  work ;  and  the  greater  part  of  the 
letters  so  .cited  exists  in  the  archives  at  Vienna,  while  the  others,  such  as 
those  addressed  by  the  Queen  to  Madame  dc  Polignac,  etc.,  are  just  such  as 
were  sure  .to  be  preserved  as  relics  by  the  families  of  those  to  whom  they 
were  addressed,  and  can  therefore  hardly  be  considered  as  liable  to  the  slight- 
est suspicion- 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  L 

Importance  of  Marie  Antoinette  in  the  Revolution. — Value  of  her  Corres- 
pondence as  a  Means  of  estimating  her  Character. — Her  Birth,  Novem- 
ber 2d,  1755. — Epigram  of  Metastasio. — Habits  of  the  Imperial  Family. 
— Schonbrunn. — Death  of  the  Emperor. — Projects  for  the  Marriage  of 
the  Archduchess. — Her  Education. — The  Abbe  de  Vermond. — Metastasio. 
— Gluck Page  17 

CHAPTER  H. 

Proposal  for  the  Marriage  of  Marie  Antoinette  to  the  Dauphin. — Early  Edu- 
cation of  the  Dauphin. — The  Archduchess  leaves  Vienna  in  April,  1 770. — 
Her  Reception  at  Strasburg. — She  meets  the  King  at  Compiegne. — The 
Marriage  takes  place  May  16th,  1770 24 

CHAPTER  m. 

Feelings  in  Germany  and  France  on  the  Subject  of  the  Marriage. — Letter  of 
Maria  Teresa  to  the  Dauphin. — Characters  of  the  Different  Members  of  the 
Royal  Family. — Difficulties  which  beset  Marie  Antoinette. — Maria  Teresa's 
Letter  of  Advice. — The  Comte  de  Mercy  is  sent  as  Embassador  to  France 
to  act  as  the  Adviser  of  the  Dauphiness. — The  Princesse  de  Lorraine  at 
the  State  Ball. — A  Great  Disaster  takes  place  at  the  Fire-works  in  Paris. — 
The  Peasant  at  Fontainebleau. — Marie  Antoinette  pleases  the  King. — De- 
scription of  her  Personal  Appearance. — Mercy's  Report  of  the  Impression 
she  made  on  her  First  Arrival 33 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Marie  Antoinette  gives  her  Mother  her  First  Impressions  of  the  Court  and 
of  her  own  Position  and  Prospects. — Court  Life  at  Versailles. — Marie  An- 
toinette shows  her  Dislike  of  Etiquette. — Character  of  the  Due  d'Aiguillon. 
— Cabals  against  the  Dauphiness.  —  Jealousy  of  Mme.  du  Barri.  —  The 
Aunts,  too,  are  Jealous  of  Her. — She  becomes  more  and  more  Popular. — 
Parties  for  Donkey-riding. — Scantiness  of  the  Dauphiness's  Income. — Her 
Influence  over  the  King. — The  Due  de  Choiseul  is  dismissed. — She  begins 
to  have  Great  Influence  over  the  Dauphin., 42 


8  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Mercy's  Correspondence  with  the  Empress. — Distress  and  Discontent  pervade 
France.  —  Goldsmith  predicts  a  Revolution.  —  Apathy  of  the  King.  —  The 
Aunts  mislead  Marie  Antoinette. — Maria  Teresa  hears  that  the  Dauphiness 
neglects  her  German  Visitors. — Marriage  of  the  Count  de  Provence. — Grow- 
ing Preference  of  Louis  XV.  for  the  Dauphiness. — The  Dauphiness  applies 
herself  to  Study. — Marie  Antoinette  becomes  a  Horsewoman. — Her  Kind- 
ness to  all  beneath  her. — Cabals  of  the  Adherents  of  the  Mistress. — The 
Royal  Family  become  united.  —  Concerts  in  the  Apartments  of  the  Dau- 
phiness  Page  56 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Marie  Antoinette  wishes  to  see  Paris. — Intrigues  of  Madame  Adelaide. — Char- 
acters of  the  Dauphin  and  the  Count  de  Provence. — Grand  Review  at  Fon- 
tainebleau. — Marie  Antoinette  in  the  Hunting  Field. — Letter  from  her  to 
the  Empress. — Mischievous  Influence  of  the  Dauphin's  Aunts  on  her  Char- 
acter.— Letter  of  Marie  Antoinette  to  the  Empress. — Her  Affection  for  her 
Old  Home. — The  Princes  are  recalled  from  Exile. — Lord  Stormont. — Great 
Fire  at  the  Hotcl-Dicu. — Liberality  and  Charity  of  Marie  Antoinette. — She 
goes  to  the  Bal  d'Opera. — Her  Feelings  about  the  Partition  of  Poland. — 
The  King  discusses  Politics  with  her,  and  thinks  highly  of  her  Ability. .  66 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Marie  Antoinette  is  anxious  for  the  Maintenance  of  the  Alliance  between 
France  and  Austria.  —  She,  with  the  Dauphin,  makes  a  State  Entry  into 
Paris. — The  "Dames  de  la  Halle." — She  praises  the  Courtesy  of  the  Dau- 
phin.— Her  Delight  at  the  Enthusiasm  of  the  Citizens. — She,  with  the  Dau- 
phin, goes  to  the  Theatre,  and  to  the  Fair  of  St.  Ovide,  and  to  St.  Cloud. — 
Is  enthusiastic  illy  received  everywhere. — She  learns  to  drive. — She  makes 
some  Relaxations  in  Etiquette.  —  Marriage  of  the  Comte  d'Artois.  —  The 
King's  Health  grows  Bad. — Visit  of  Marshal  Lacy  to  Versailles. — The  King 
catches  the  Small-pox.  —  Madame  du  Barri  quits  Versailles. — The  King 
dies 76 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  Court  leaves  Versailles  for  La  Muette. — Feelings  of  the  New  Sovereigns. 
— Madame  du  Barri  is  sent  to  a  Convent. — Marie  Antoinette  writes  to  Maria 
Teresa. — The  Good  Intentions  of  the  New  Sovereigns. — Madame  Adelaide 
has  the  Small-pox. — Anxieties  of  Maria  Teresa. — Mischievous  Influence  of 
the  Aunts. — Position  and  Influence  of  the  Count  de  Mercy. — Louis  consults 
the  Queen  on  Matters  of  Policy. — Her  Prudence. — She  begins  to  Purify  the 
Court,  and  to  relax  the  Rules  of  Etiquette. — Her  Care  of  her  Pages. — The 
King  and  she  renounce  the  Gifts  of  Le  Joyeux  Ave"nement,  and  La  Cein- 
ture  de  la  Reine. — She  procures  the  Pardon  of  the  Due  de  Choiseul 87 

CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Comte  de  Provence  intrigues  against  the  Queen. — The  King  gives  her  the 
Little  Trianon. — She  lays  out  an  English  Garden. — Maria  Teresa  cautions 


CONTENTS.  9 

her  against  Expense. — The  King  and  Queen  abolish  some  of  the  Old  Forms. 
— The  Queen  endeavors  to  establish  Friendships  with  some  of  her  Younger 
Ladies. — They  abuse  her  Favor. — Her  Eagerness  for  Amusement. — Louis 
enters  into  her  Views. — Etiquette  is  abridged. — Private  Parties  at  Choisy. 
— Supper  Parties. — Opposition  of  the  Princesses. — Some  of  the  Courtiers 
are  dissatisfied  at  the  Relaxation  of  Etiquette. — Marie  Antoinette  is  ac- 
cused of  Austrian  Preferences Page  97 

CHAPTER  X. 

Settlement  of  the  Queen's  Allowance.  —  Character  and  Views  of  Turgot. — 
She  induces  Gluck  to  visit  Paris. — Performance  of  his  Opera  of  "  Iphigenie 
en  Aulide." — The  First  Encore. — Marie  Antoinette  advocates  the  Re-estab- 
lishment of  the  Parliaments,  and  receives  an  Address  from  them. — English 
Visitors  at  the  Court. — The  King  is  compared  to  Louis  XII.  and  Henri  IV. 
— The  Archduke  Maximilian  visits  his  Sister. — Factious  Conduct  of  the 
Princes  of  the  Blood.  —  Anti- Austrian  Feeling  in  Paris. — The  War  of 
Grains. — The  King  is  crowned  at  Rheims. — Feelings  of  Marie  Antoinette. 
— Her  Improvements  at  the  Trianon.  —  Her  Garden  Parties  there.  —  De- 
scription of  her  Beauty  by  Burke,  and  by  Horace  Walpole 107 

CHAPTER  XL 

Tea  is  introduced. — Horse-racing  of  Count  d'Artois. — Marie  Antoinette  goes 
to  see  it. — The  Queen's  Submissiveness  to  the  Reproofs  of  the  Empress. — 
Birth  of  the  Due  d'Angouleme. — She  at  times  speaks  lightly  of  the  King. — 
The  Emperor  remonstrates  with  her. — Character  of  some  of  the  Queen's 
Friends. — The  Princess  de  Lamballe. — The  Countess  Jules  de  Polignac. — 
They  set  the  Queen  against  Turgot. — She  procures  his  Dismissal. — She 
gratifies  Madame  Polignac's  Friends. — Her  Regard  for  the  French  Peo- 
ple.— Water  Parties  on  the  Seine. — Her  Health  is  Delicate. — Gambling  at 
the  Palace 119 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Marie  Antoinette  finds  herself  in  Debt.  —  Forgeries  of  her  Name  are  com- 
mitted.— The  Queen  devotes  herself  too  much  to  Madame  de  Polignac  and 
others. — Versailles  is  less  frequented. — Remonstrances  of  the  Empress. — 
Volatile  Character  of  the  Queen. — She  goes  to  the  Bals  d'Opera  at  Paris. — 
She  receives  the  Duke  of  Dorset  and  other  English  Nobles  with  Favor. — 
Grand  Entertainment  given  her  by  the  Count  de  Provence. — Character  of 
the  Emperor  Joseph.  —  He  visits  Paris  and  Versailles. — His  Feelings  to- 
ward and  Conversations  with  the  King  and  Queen. — He  goes  to  the  Opera. 
— His  Opinion  of  the  Queen's  Friends. — Marie  Antoinette's  Letter  to  the 
Empress  on  his  Departure.  —  The  Emperor  leaves  her  a  Letter  of  Ad- 
vice.  ., 129 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Impressions  made  on  the  Queen  by  the  Emperor's  Visit. — Mutual  Jealousies 
of  her  Favorites. — The  Story  of  the  Chevalier  d'Assas. — The  Terrace  Con- 
certs at  Versailles. — More  Inroads  on  Etiquette. — Insolence  and  Unpopu- 
larity of  the  Count  d'Artois. — Marie  Antoinette  takes  Interest  in  Politics. 


10  CONTENTS. 

— France  concludes  an  Alliance  with  the  United  States. — Affairs  of  Bava- 
ria.— Character  of  the  Queen's  Letters  on  Politics. — The  Queen  expects  to 
become  a  Mother. — Voltaire  returns  to  Paris. — The  Queen  declines  to  re- 
ceive him. — Misconduct  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans  in  the  Action  off  Ushant. — 
The  Queen  uses  her  Influence  in  his  Favor Page  141 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Birth  of  Madame  Royale. — Festivities  of  Thanksgiving. — The  Dames  de  la 
Halle  at  the  Theatre. — Thanksgiving  at  Notre  Dame. — The  King  goes  to  a 
Bal  d'Ope'ra. — The  Queen's  Carriage  breaks  down.— Marie  Antoinette  has  the 
Measles. — Her  Anxiety  about  the  War. — Retrenchments  of  Expense...  155 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Anglomania  in  Paris. — The  Winter  at  Versailles. — Hunting.  —  Private  The- 
atricals.— Death  of  Prince  Charles  of  Lorraine. — Successes  of  the  English 
in  America. — Education  of  the  Due  d'Angouleme. — Libelous  Attacks  on  the 
Queen. — Death  of  the  Empress. — Favor  shown  some  of  the  Swedish  Nobles. 
— The  Count  de  Fersen. — Necker  retires  from  Office. — His  Character...  167 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Queen  expects  to  be  confined  again.  —  Increasing  Unpopularity  of  the 
King's  Brothers.— Birth  of  the  Dauphin. — Festivities. — Deputations  from 
the  Different  Trades. — Songs  of  the  Dames  de  la  Halle. — Ball  given  by  the 
Body-guard. — Unwavering  Fidelity  of  the  Regiment. — The  Queen  offers  up 
her  Thanksgiving  at  Notre  Dame. — Banquet  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville. — Re- 
joicings in  Paris 176 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Madame  de  Guimene'e  resigns  the  Office  of  Governess  of  the  Royal  Children. 
— Madame  de  Polignac  succeeds  her. — Marie  Antoinette's  Views  of  Educa- 
tion.— Character  of  Madame  Royale. — The  Grand  Duke  Paul  and  his  Grand 
Duchess  visit  the  French  Court. — Their  Characters. — Entertainments  given 
in  their  Honor. — Insolence  of  the  Cardinal  de  Rohan. — His  Character  and 
previous  Life. — Grand  Festivities  at  Chantilly. — Events  of  the  War. — Rod- 
ney defeats  De  Grasse. — The  Siege  of  Gibraltar  fails. — M.  de  Suff rein  fights 
five  Drawn  Battles  with  Sir  E.  Hughes  in  the  Indian  Seas. — The  Queen  re- 
ceives him  with  Great  Honor  on  his  Return 184 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Peace  is  re-established. — Embarrassments  of  the  Ministry. — Distress  of  the 
Kingdom. — M.  de  Calonne  becomes  Finance  Minister.  —  The  Winter  of 
1783-'84  is  very  Severe. — The  Queen  devotes  Large  Sums  to  Charity. — Her 
Political  Influence  increases. — Correspondence  between  the  Emperor  and 
her  on  European  Politics. — The  State  of  France. — The  Baron  de  Breteuil. — 
Her  Description  of  the  Character  of  the  King 194 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

"The  Marriage  of  Figaro."  —  Previous  History  and  Character  of  Beaumar- 
chais. — The  Performance  of  the  Play  is  forbidden. — It  is  said  to  be  a  little 


CONTENTS.  11 

altered. — It  is  licensed. — Displeasure  of  the  Queen. — Visit  of  Gustavus  HI. 
of  Sweden. — Fete  at  the  Trianon. — Balloon  Ascent Page  202 

CHAPTER  XX. 

St.  Cloud  is  purchased  for  the  Queen. — Libelous  Attacks  on  her. — Birth  of 
the  Due  de  Normandie. — Joseph  presses  her  to  make  France  support  his 
Views  in  the  Low  Countries. — The  Affair  of  the  Necklace. — Share  which  the 
Cardinal  de  Rohan  had  in  it. — The  Queen's  Indignation  at  his  Acquittal. — 
Subsequent  Career  of  the  Cardinal 210 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

The  King  visits  Cherbourg.  —  Rarity  of  Royal  Journeys.  —  The  Princess 
Christine  visits  the  Queen. — Hostility  of  the  Due  d'Orleans  to  the  Queen. — 
Libels  on  her. — She  is  called  Madame  Deficit. — She  has  a  Second  Daughter, 
who  dies. — 111  Health  of  the  Dauphin. — Unskillfulness  and  Extravagance  of 
Calonne's  System  of  Finance. — Distress  of  the  Kingdom. — He  assembles 
the  Notables. — They  oppose  his  Plans. — Letters  of  Marie  Antoinette  on  the 
Subject.  —  Her  Ideas  of  the  English  Parliament.  —  Dismissal  of  Calonne. — 
Character  of  Archbishop  Lomenie  de  Brienne. — Obstinacy  of  Necker. — 
The  Archbishop  is  appointed  Minister. — The  Distress  increases. — The  Not- 
ables are  dissolved. — Violent  Opposition  of  the  Parliament. — Resemblance 
of  the  French  Revolution  to  the  English  Rebellion  of  1642. — Arrest  of 
D'Espremesnil  and  Montsabert 223 

CHAPTER  XXTT. 

Formidable  Riots  take  place  in  some  Provinces.  —  The  Archbishop  invites 
Necker  to  join  his  Ministry. — Letter  of  Marie  Antoinette  describing  her 
Interview  with  the  Archbishop,  and  her  Views. — Necker  refuses. — The 
Queen  sends  Messages  to  Necker. — The  Archbishop  resigns,  and  Necker 
becomes  Minister. — The  Queen's  View  of  his  Character. — General  Rejoicing. 
— Defects  in  Necker's  Character.  —  He  recalls  the  Parliament.  —  Riots  in 
Paris.  —  Severe  Winter.  —  General  Distress.  —  Charities  of  the  King  and 
Queen. — Gratitude  of  the  Citizens. — The  Princes  are  concerned  in  the  Li- 
bels published  against  the  Queen.  —  Preparations  for  the  Meeting  of  the 
States-general. — Long  Disuse  of  that  Assembly. — Need  of  Reform. — Vices 
of  the  Old  Feudal  System. — Necker's  Blunders  in  the  Arrangements  for  the 
Meeting  of  the  States. — An  Edict  of  the  King  concedes  the  Chief  Demands 
of  the  Commons. — Views  of  the  Queen 234 

CHAPTER  XXm. 

The  Reveillon  Riot. — Opening  of  the  States-general. — The  Queen  is  insulted 
by  the  Partisans  of  the  Due  d'Orleans. — Discussions  as  to  the  Number  of 
Chambers. — Career  and  Character  of  Mirabeau. — Necker  rejects  his  Sup- 
port— He  determines  to  revenge  himself. — Death  of  the  Dauphin 247 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Troops  are  brought  up  from  the  Frontier. — The  Assembly  petitions  the  King 
to  withdraw  them. — He  refuses.  —  He  dismisses  Necker.  —  The  Baron  de 
Breteuil  is  appointed  Prime  Minister.  —  Terrible  Riots  in  Paris. — The  Tri- 


12  CONTENTS. 

color  Flag  is  adopted. — Storming  of  the  Bastile  and  Murder  of  the  Gov- 
ernor.— The  Count  d'Artois  and  other  Princes  fly  from  the  Kingdom. — The 
King  recalls  Xecker. — Withdraws  the  Soldiers  and  visits  Paris. — Forma- 
tion of  the  National  Guard. — Insolence  of  La  Fayette  and  Bailly. — Madame 
de  Tourzel  becomes  Governess  of  the  Royal  Children. — Letters  of  Marie  An- 
toinette on  their  Character,  and  on  her  own  Views  of  Education. ...Page  257 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Xecker  resumes  Office.  —  Outrages  in  the  Provinces.  —  Pusillanimity  of  the 
Body  of  the  Nation. —  Parties  in  the  Assembly. —  Views  of  the  Constitu- 
tionalists or  "Plain."  —  Barnave  makes  Overtures  to  the  Court.  —  The 
Queen  rejects  them.  —  The  Assembly  abolishes  all  Privileges,  August 
4th.  —  Debates  on  the  Veto.  —  An  Attack  on  Versailles  is  threatened. — 
Great  Scarcity  in  Paris. — The  King  sends  his  Plate  to  be  melted  down. — 
The  Regiment  of  Flanders  is  brought  up  to  Versailles. — A  Military  Ban- 
quet is  held  in  the  Opera-house. — October  5th,  a  Mob  from  Paris  marches 
on  Versailles. — Blunders  of  La  Fayette. — Ferocity  of  the  Mob  on  the  5th. 
— Attack  on  the  Palace  on  the  6th. — Danger  and  Heroism  of  the  Queen. — 
The  Royal  Family  remove  to  Paris. —  Their  Reception  at  the  Barrier  and 
at  the  Hotel  de  Ville. —  Shabbiness  of  the  Tuileries. —  The  King  fixes  his 
Residence  there 270 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Feelings  of  Marie  Antoinette  on  coming  to  the  Tuileries. — Her  Tact  in  win- 
ning the  Hearts  of  the  Common  People. — Mirabeau  changes  his  Views. — 
Quarrel  between  La  Fayette  and  the  Due  d'Orleans. — Mirabeau  desires  to 
offer  his  Services  to  the  Queen. — Riots  in  Paris. — Murder  of  Francois. — 
The  Assembly  pass  a  Vote  prohibiting  any  Member  from  taking  Office. — 
The  Emigration.  —  Death  of  the  Emperor  Joseph  II.  —  Investigation  into 
the  Riots  of  October. — The  Queen  refuses  to  give  Evidence. — Violent  Pro- 
ceedings in  the  Assembly. — Execution  of  the  Marquis  de  Favras 287 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

The  King  accepts  the  Constitution  so  far  as  it  has  been  settled. — The  Queen 
makes  a  Speech  to  the  Deputies. —  She  is  well  received  at  the  Theatre. — 
Negotiations  with  Mirabeau. — The  Queen's  Views  of  the  Position  of  Affairs. 
—  The  Jacobin  Club  denounces  Mirabeau.  —  Deputation  of  Anacharsis 
Clootz. — Demolition  of  the  Statue  of  Louis  XIV. — Abolition  of  Titles  of 
Honor. — The  Queen  admits  Mirabeau  to  an  Audience. — His  Admiration  of 
her  Courage  and  Talents. —  Anniversary  of  the  Capture  of  the  Bastile. — 
Fete  of  the  Champ  de  Mars. — Presence  of  Mind  of  the  Queen 299 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

Great  Tumults  in  the  Provinces. — Mutiny  in  the  Marquis  de  Bouille's  Army. — 
Disorder  of  the  Assembly. — Difficulty  of  managing  Mirabeau. — Mercy  is  re- 
moved to  The  Hague. — Marie  Antoinette  sees  constant  Changes  in  the  As- 
pect of  Affairs. — Marat  denounces  Her. — Attempts  are  made  to  assas- 
sinate Her.  —  Resignation  of  Mirabeau.  —  Misconduct  of  the  Emigrant 
Princes....  ..  310 


CONTENTS.  13 

CHAPTER  XXTX. 

Louis  and  Marie  Antoinette  contemplate  Foreign  Intervention. — The  Assem- 
bly passes  Laws  to  subordinate  the  Church  to  the  Civil  Power. — Insolence 
of  La  Fayette. — Marie  Antoinette  refuses  to  quit  France  by  Herself. — The 
Jacobins  and  La  Fayette  try  to  revive  the  Story  of  the  Necklace. — Marie  An- 
toinette with  her  Family. — Flight  from  Paris  is  decided  on. — The  Queen's 
Preparations  and  Views. — An  Oath  to  observe  the  new  Ecclesiastical  Consti- 
tution is  imposed  on  the  Clergy. — The  King's  Aunts  leave  France... Page  320 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

The  Mob  attacks  the  Castle  at  Vincennes. — La  Fayette  saves  it. — He  insults 
the  Nobles  who  come  to  protect  the  King. — Perverseness  of  the  Count  d'Ar- 
tois  and  the  Emigrants. — Mirabeau  dies. — General  Sorrow  for  his  Death. — 
He  would  probably  not  have  been  able  to  arrest  the  Revolution. — The  Mob 
prevent  the  King  from  visiting  St.  Cloud. — The  Assembly  passes  a  Vote  to 
forbid  him  to  go  more  than  twenty  Leagues  from  Paris 331 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Plans  for  the  Escape  of  the  Royal  Family. — Dangers  of  Discovery. — Resolu- 
tion of  the  Queen. — The  Royal  Family  leave  the  Palace. — They  are  rec- 
ognized at  Ste.  Menehould. — Are  arrested  at  Varennes. — Tumult  in  the 
City,  and  in  the  Assembly. — The  King  and  Queen  are  brought  back  to 
Paris 341 

CHAPTER  YXXTT 

Marie  Antoinette's  Feelings  on  her  Return.  —  She  sees  Hopes  of  Improve- 
ment.— The  17th  of  July. — The  Assembly  inquire  into  the  King's  Conduct 
on  leaving  Paris. —  They  resolve  that  there  is  no  Reason  for  taking  Pro- 
ceedings.— Excitement  in  Foreign  Countries. —  The  Assembly  proceeds  to 
complete  the  Constitution. — It  declares  all  the  Members  Incapable  of  Elec- 
tion to  the  New  Assembly. —  Letters  of  Marie  Antoinette  to  the  Emperor 
and  to  Mercy. —  The  Declaration  of  Pilnitz. —  The  King  accepts  the  Con- 
stitution.— Insults  offered  to  him  at  the  Festival  of  the  Champ  de  Mars. — 
And  to  the  Queen  at  the  Theatre. — The  First  or  Constituent  Assembly  is 
dissolved 352 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Composition  of  the  New  Assembly. — Rise  of  the  Girondins. — Their  Corrup- 
tion and  Eventual  Fate. — Vergniaud's  Motions  against  the  King. — Favora- 
ble Reception  of  the  King  at  the  Assembly,  and  at  the  Opera. — Changes  in 
the  Ministry. — The  King's  and  Queen's  Language  to  M.  Bertrand  de  Mole- 
ville. — The  Count  de  Narbonne. — Petion  is  elected  Mayor  of  Paris. — Scar- 
city of  Money,  and  Great  Hardships  of  the  Royal  Family. — Presents  arrive 
from  Tippoo  Sahib. — The  Dauphin. — The  Assembly  passes  Decrees  against 
the  Priests  and  the  Emigrants. — Misconduct  of  the  Emigrants. — Louis  re- 
fuses his  Assent  to  the  Decrees. — He  issues  a  Circular  condemning  Emi- 
gration  .". 369 


14  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Death  of  Leopold. — Murder  of  Gustavus  of  Sweden. — Violence  of  Vergniaud. 
— The  Ministers  resign. — A  Girondin  Ministry  is  appointed. — Character  of 
Dumouriez. — Origin  of  the  Name  Sans-culottes. — Union  of  Different  Parties 
against  the  Queen. — War  is  declared  against  the  Empire. — Operations  in 
the  Netherlands. — Unskillfulness  of  La  Fayette. — The  King  falls  into  a 
State  of  Torpor. —  Fresh  Libels  on  the  Queen. —  Barnave's  Advice. —  Du- 
mouriez has  an  Audience  of  the  Queen. — Dissolution  of  the  Constitutional 
Guard. — Formation  of  a  Camp  near  Paris. — Louis  adheres  to  his  Refusal 
to  assent  to  the  Decree  against  the  Priests. — Dumouriez  resigns  his  Office, 
and  takes  command  of  the  Army Page  382 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 

The  Insurrection  of  June  20th 395 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

Feelings  of  Marie  Antoinette. — Different  Plans  are  formed  for  her  Escape. — 
She  hopes  for  Aid  from  Austria  and  Prussia. — La  Fayette  comes  to  Paris. 
— His  Mismanagement. — An  Attempt  is  made  to  assassinate  the  Queen. — 
The  Motion  of  Bishop  Lamourette. — The  Feast  of  the  Federation. — La  Fay- 
ette proposes  a  Plan  for  the  King's  Escape. — Bertrand  proposes  Another. 
— Both  are  rejected  by  the  Queen 404 

CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

Preparation  for  a  New  Insurrection. — Barbaroux  brings  up  a  Gang  from  Mar- 
seilles.— The  King's  last  Levee. — The  Assembly  rejects  a  Motion  for  the 
Impeachment  of  La  Fayette.  —  It  removes  some  Regiments  from  Paris. — 
Preparations  of  the  Court  for  Defense.  —  The  10th  of  August. — The  City 
is  in  Insurrection.  —  Murder  of  Mandat. — Louis  reviews  the  Guards. — He 
takes  Refuge  with  the  Assembly. — Massacre  of  the  Swiss  Guards. — Sack 
of  the  Tuileries. — Discussions  in  the  Assembly. — The  Royal  Authority  is 
suspended 415 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

Indignities  to  which  the  Royal  Family  are  subjected. — They  are  removed  to 
the  Temple. — Divisions  in  the  Assembly. — Flight  of  La  Fayette. — Advance 
of  the  Prussians. — Lady  Sutherland  supplies  the  Dauphin  with  Clothes. — 
Mode  of  Life  in  the  Temple. — The  Massacres  of  September. — The  Death  of 
the  Princess  de  Lamballe. — Insults  are  heaped  on  the  King  and  Queen. 
— The  Trial  of  the  King. —  His  Last  Interview  with  his  Family. —  His 
Death 430 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

The  Queen  is  refused  Leave  to  see  Clery.  —  Madame  Royale  is  taken  111.  — 
Plans  are  formed  for  the  Queen's  Escape  by  MM.  Jarjayes,  Toulan,  and  by 
the  Baron  de  Batz. — Marie  Antoinette  refuses  to  leave  her  Son. — Illness 
of  the  young  King. — Overthrow  of  the  Girondins. — Insanity  of  the  Woman 


CONTENTS.  15 

Tison. — Kindness  of  the  Queen  to  her. — Her  Son  is  taken  from  her,  and 
intrusted  to  Simon. — His  Ill-treatment. — The  Queen  is  removed  to  the  Con- 
ciergerie. — She  is  tried  before  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal. — She  is  con- 
demned.— Her  last  Letter  to  the  Princess  Elizabeth. — Her  Death  and  Char- 
acter  Page  442 

INDEX...,  ..  463 


LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Importance  of  Marie  Antoinette  in  the  Revolution. — Value  of  her  Correspond- 
ence as  a  Means  of  estimating  her  Character. — Her  Birth,  November  2d, 
1755. — Epigram  of  Metastasio. — Habits  of  the  Imperial  Family. — Schon- 
brunn. — Death  of  the  Emperor. — Projects  for  the  Marriage  of  the  Arch- 
duchess.— Her  Education. — The  Abbe  de  Vermond. — Metastasio. — Gluck. 

THE  most  striking  event  in  the  annals  of  modern  Europe  is 
unquestionably  the  French  Revolution  of  1789 — a  Revolution 
which,  in  one  sense,  may  be  said  to  be  still  in  progress,  but  which, 
in  a  more  limited  view,  may  be  regarded  as  having  been  consum- 
mated by  the  deposition  and  murder  of  the  sovereign  of  the 
country.  It  is  equally  undeniable  that,  during  its  first  period,  the 
person  who  most  attracts  and  rivets  attention  is  the  queen.  One 
of  the  most  brilliant  of  modern  French  writers*  has  recently  re- 
marked that,  in  spite  of  the  number  of  years  which  have  elapsed 
since  the  grave  closed  over  the  sorrows  of  Marie  Antoinette,  and 
of  the  almost  unbroken  series  of  exciting  events  which  have  mark- 
ed the  annals  of  France  in  the  interval,  the  interest  excited  by  her 
story  is  as  fresh  and  engrossing  as  ever ;  that  such  as  Hecuba  and 
Andromache  were  to  the  ancients,  objects  never  named  to  inat- 
tentive ears,  never  contemplated  without  lively  sympathy,  such 
still  is  their  hapless  queen  to  all  honest  and  intelligent  French- 
men. It  may  even  be  said  that  that  interest  has  increased  of  late 
years.  The  respectful  and  remorseful  pity  which  her  fate  could 
not  fail  to  awaken  has  been  quickened  by  the  publication  of  her 
correspondence  with  her  family  and  intimate  friends,  which  has 
laid  bare,  without  disguise,  all  her  inmost  thoughts  and  feelings, 
her  errors  as  well  as  her  good  deeds,  her  .weaknesses  equally  with 

*  Sainte-Beuve,  "Nouveaux  Lundis,"  August  8th,  1864. 
2 


18  LIFE  OF  MAMIE  ANTOINETTE. 

her  virtues.  Few,  indeed,  even  of  those  whom  the  world  regards 
with  its  highest  favor  and  esteem,  could  endure  such  an  ordeal 
without  some  diminution  of  their  fame.  Yet  it  is  but  recording 
the  general  verdict  of  all  whose  judgment  is  of  value,  to  affirm 
that  Marie  Antoinette  has  triumphantly  surmounted  it ;  and  that 
the  result  of  a  scrutiny  as  minute  and  severe  as  any  to  which  a 
human  being  has  ever  been  subjected,  has  been  greatly  to  raise 
her  reputation. 

Not  that  she  was  one  of  those  paragons  whom  painters  of  mod- 
el heroines  have  delighted  to  imagine  to  themselves;  one  who 
from  childhood  gave  manifest  indications  of  excellence  and  great- 
ness, and  whose  whole  life  was  but  a  steady  progressive  develop- 
ment of  its  early  promise.  She  was  rather  one  in  whom  adver- 
sity brought  forth  great  qualities,  her  possession  of  which,  had 
her  life  been  one  of  that  unbroken  sunshine  which  is  regarded  by 
many  as  the  natural  and  inseparable  attendant  of  royalty,  might 
never  have  been  even  suspected.  We  meet  with  her  first,  at  an 
age  scarcely  advanced  beyond  childhood,  transported  from  her 
school-room  to  a  foreign  court,  as  wife  to  the  heir  of  one  of  the 
noblest  kingdoms  of  Europe.  And  in  that  situation  we  see  her 
for  a  while  a  light-hearted,  merry  girl,  annoyed  rather  than  elated 
by  her  new  magnificence ;  thoughtless,  if  not  frivolous,  in  her  pur- 
suits ;  fond  of  dress :  eager  in  her  appetite  for  amusement,  tem- 
pered only  by  an  innate  purity  of  feeling  which  never  deserted 
her;  the  brightest  features  of  her  character  being  apparently  a 
frank  affability,  and  a  genuine  and  active  kindness  and  humanity 
which  were  displayed  to  all  classes  and  on  all  occasions.  We  see 
her  presently  as  queen,  hardly  yet  arrived  at  womanhood,  little 
changed  in  disposition  or  in  outward  demeanor,  though  profiting 
to  the  utmost  by  the  opportunities  which  her  increased  power  af- 
forded her  of  proving  the  genuine  tenderness  of  her  heart,  by 
munificent  and  judicious  works  of  charity  and  benevolence ;  and 
exerting  her  authority,  if  possible,  still  more  beneficially  by  pro- 
tecting virtue,  discountenancing  vice,  and  purifying  a  court  whose 
shameless  profligacy  had  for  many  generations  been  the  scandal 
of  Christendom.  It  is  probable,  indeed,  that  much  of  her  early 
levity  was  prompted  by  a  desire  to  drive  from  her  mind  disap- 
pointments and  mortifications  of  which  few  suspected  the  exist- 
ence, but  which  were  only  the  more  keenly  felt  because  she  was 
compelled  to  keep  them  to  herself;  but  it  is  certain  that  during 
the  first  eight  or  ten  years  of  her  residence  in  France  there  was 


DIFFERENT  PERIODS  OF  HER  LIFE.  19 

little  in  her  habits  and  conduct,  however  amiable  and  attractive, 
which  could  have  led  her  warmest  friends  to  discern  in  her  the 
high  qualities  which  she  was  destined  to  exhibit  before  its  close. 

Presently,  however,  she  becomes  a  mother;  and  in  this  new 
relation  we  begin  to  perceive  glimpses  of  a  loftier  nature.  From 
the  moment  of  the  birth  of  her  first  child,  she  performed  those 
new  duties  which,  perhaps  more  than  any  others,  call  forth  all  the 
best  and  most  peculiar  virtues  of  the  female  heart  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  to  add  esteem  and  respect  to  the  good-will  which  her  affa- 
bility and  courtesy  had  already  inspired ;  recognizing  to  the  full 
the  claims  which  the  nation  had  upon  her,  that  she  should,  in  per- 
son, superintend  the  education  of  her  children,  and  especially  of 
her  son  as  its  future  ruler ;  and  discharging  that  sacred  duty,  not 
only  with  the  most  affectionate  solicitude,  but  also  with  the  most 
admirable  judgment. 

But  years  so  spent  were  years  of  happiness;  and,  though  such 
may  suffice  to  display  the  amiable  virtues,  it  is  by  adversity  that 
the  grander  qualities  of  the  head  and  heart  are  more  strikingly 
drawn  forth.  To  the  trials  of  that  stern  inquisitress,  Marie  An- 
toinette was  fully  exposed  in  her  later  years ;  and  not  only  did 
she  rise  above  them,  but  the  more  terrible  and  unexampled  they 
were,  the  more  conspicuous  was  the  superiority  of  her  mind  to 
fortune.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  history  of  the 
whole  world  has  preserved  no  record  of  greater  heroism,  in  either 
sex,  than  was  shown  by  Marie  Antoinette  during  the  closing  years 
of  her  life.  No  courage  was  ever  put  to  the  proof  by  such  a  va- 
riety and  such  an  accumulation  of  dangers  and  miseries ;  and  no 
one  ever  came  out  of  an  encounter  with  even  far  inferior  calami- 
ties with  greater  glory.  Her  moral  courage  and  her  physical 
courage  were  equally  tried.  It  was  not  only  that  her  own  life, 
and  lives  far  dearer  to  her  than  her  own,  were  exposed  to  daily 
and  hourly  peril,  or  that  to  this  danger  were  added  repeated  vexa- 
tions of  hopes  baffled  and  trusts  betrayed ;  but  these  griefs  were 
largely  aggravated  by  the  character  and  conduct  of  those  nearest 
to  her.  Instead  of  meeting  with  counsel  and  support  from  her 
husband  and  his  brothers,  she  had  to  guide  and  support  Louis 
himself,  and  even  to  find  him  so  incurably  weak  as  to  be  incapa- 
ble of  being  kept  in  the  path  of  wisdom  by  her  sagacity,  or  of 
deriving  vigor  from  her  fortitude ;  while  the  princes  were  acting 
in  selfish  and  disloyal  opposition  to  him,  and  so,  in  a  great  de- 
gree, sacrificing  him  and  her  to  their  perverse  conceit,  if  we  may 


20  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

not  say  to  their  faithless  ambition.  She  had  to  think  for  all,  to 
act  for  all,  to  struggle  for  all ;  and  to  bear  up  against  the  convic- 
tion that  her  thoughts,  and  actions,  and  struggles  were  being  balk- 
ed of  their  effect  by  the  very  persons  for  whom  she  was  exerting 
herself ;  that  she  was  but  laboring  to  save  those  who  would  not 
be  saved.  Yet,  throughout  that  protracted  agony  of  more  than 
four  years  she  bore  herself  with  an  unswerving  righteousness  of 
purpose  and  an  unfaltering  fearlessness  of  resolution  which  could 
not  have  been  exceeded  had  she  been  encouraged  by  the  most 
constant  success.  And  in  the  last  terrible  hours,  when  the  mon- 
sters who  had  already  murdered  her  husband  were  preparing  the 
same  fate  for  herself,  she  met  their  hatred  and  ferocity  with 
a  loftiness  of  spirit  which  even  hopelessness  could  not  subdue. 
Long  before,  she  had  declared  that  she  had  learned,  from  the  ex- 
ample of  her  mother,  not  to  fear  death ;  and  she  showed  that  this 
was  no  empty  boast  when  she  rose  in  the  last  scenes  of  her  life  as 
much  even  above  her  earlier  displays  of  courage  and  magnanimity 
as  she  also  rose  above  the  utmost  malice  of  her  vile  enemies. 

Marie  Antoinette  Josephe  Jeanne  was  the  youngest  daughter  of 
Francis,  originally  Duke  of  Lorraine,  afterward  Grand  Duke  of 
Tuscany,  and  eventually  Emperor  of  Germany,  and  of  Maria  Te- 
resa, Archduchess  of  Austria,  Queen  of  Hungary  and  Bohemia, 
more  generally  known,  after  the  attainment  of  the  imperial  dig- 
nity by  her  husband  in  1745,  as  the  Empress  -  queen.  Of  her 
brothers,  two,  Joseph  and  Leopold,  succeeded  in  turn  to  the  im- 
perial dignity ;  and  one  of  her  sisters,  Caroline,  became  the  wife 
of  the  King  of  Naples.  She  was  born  on  the  2d  of  November, 
1755,  a  day  which,  when  her  later  years  were  darkened  by  mis- 
fortune, was  often  referred  to  as  having  foreshadowed  it  by  its 
evil  omens,  since  it  was  that  on  which  the  terrible  earthquake 
which  laid  Lisbon  in  ruins  reached  its  height.  But,  at  the  time, 
the  Viennese  rejoiced  too  sincerely  at  every  event  which  could 
contribute  to  their  sovereign's  happiness  to  pay  any  regard  to  the 
calamities  of  another  capital,  and  the  courtly  poet  was  but  giving 
utterance  to  the  unanimous  feeling  of  her  subjects  when  he  spoke 
of  the  princess's  birth  as  calculated  to  diffuse  universal  joy. 
Daughters  had  been  by  far  the  larger  part  of  Maria  Teresa's  fam- 
ily, so  that  she  was,  consequently,  anxious  for  another  son ;  and, 
knowing  her  wishes,  the  Duke  of  Tarouka,  one  of  the  nobles 
whom  she  admitted  to  her  intimacy,  laid  her  a  small  wager  that 


HER  CHILDHOOD,  AND  DEATH  OF  HER  FATHER.         21 

they  would  be  realized  by  the  sex  of  the  expected  infant.  He 
lost  his  bet,  but  felt  some  embarrassment  in  devising  a  graceful 
mode  of  paying  it.  In  his  perplexity,  he  sought  the  advice  of  the 
celebrated  Metastasio,  who  had  been  for  some  time  established  at 
Vienna  as  the  favorite  poet  of  the  court,  and  the  Italian,  with  the 
ready  wit  of  his  country,  at  once  supplied  him  with  a  quatrain, 
which,  in  her  disappointment  itself,  could  find  ground  for  compli- 
ment: 

"  Io  perdei ;  1'  augusta  figlia 

A  pagar  m'  ha  condannato ; 

Ma  s'  &  ver  che  a  voi  somiglia, 

Tutto  il  mondo  ha  guadagnato." 

The  customs  of  the  imperial  court  had  undergone  a  great 
change  since  the  death  of  Charles  VI.  It  had  been  pre-eminent 
for  pompous  ceremony,  which  was  thought  to  become  the  dignity 
of  the  sovereign  who  boasted  of  being  the  representative  of  the 
Roman  Caesars.  But  the  Lorraine  princes  had  been  bred  up  in  a 
simpler  fashion ;  and  Francis  had  an  innate  dislike  to  all  ostenta- 
tion, while  Maria  Teresa  had  her  attention  too  constantly  fixed  on 
matters  of  solid  importance  to  have  much  leisure  to  spare  for  the 
consideration  of  trifles.  Both  husband  and  wife  greatly  prefer- 
red to  their  gorgeous  palace  at  Vienna  a  smaller  house  which 
they  possessed  in  the  neighborhood,  called  Schonbrunn,  where 
they  could  lay  aside  their  state,  and  enjoy  the  unpretending  pleas- 
ures of  domestic  and  rural  life,  cultivating  their  garden,  and,  as  far 
as  the  imperious  calls  of  public  affairs  would  allow  them  time, 
watching  over  the  education  of  their  children,  to  whom  the  exam- 
ple of  their  own  tastes  and  habits  was  imperceptibly  affording  the 
best  of  all  lessons,  a  preference  for  simple  and  innocent  pleasures. 

In  this  tranquil  retreat,  the  childhood  of  Marie  Antoinette  was 
happily  passed ;  her  bright  looks,  which  already  gave  promise  of 
future  loveliness,  her  quick  intelligence,  and  her  affectionate  dis- 
position combining  to  make  her  the  special  favorite  of  her  par- 
ents. It  was  she  whom  Francis,  when  quitting  his  family  in  the 
summer  of  1764  for  that  journey  to  Innspruck  which  proved  his 
last,  specially  ordered  to  be  brought  to  him,  saying,  as  if  he  felt 
some  foreboding  of  his  approaching  illness,  that  he  must  embrace 
her  once  more  before  he  departed ;  and  his  death,  which  took 
place  before  she  was  nine  years  old,  was  the  first  sorrow  which 
ever  brought  a  tear  into  her  eyes. 

The  superintendence  of  her  vast  empire  occupied  a  greater 


22  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

share  of  Maria  Teresa's  attention  than  the  management  of  her 
family.  But  as  Marie  Antoinette  grew  up,  the  Empress-queen's 
ambition,  ever  on  the  watch  to  maintain  and  augment  the  pros- 
perity of  her  country,  perceived  in  her  child's  increasing  attrac- 
tions a  prospect  of  cementing  more  closely  an  alliance  which  she 
had  contracted  some  years  before,  and  on  which  she  prided  her- 
self the  more  because  it  had  terminated  an  enmity  of  two  cent- 
uries and  a  half.  From  the  day  on  which  Charles  V.  prevailed 
over  Francis  I.  in  the  competition  for  the  imperial  crown,  the  atti- 
tude of  the  Emperor  of  Germany  and  of  the  King  of  France  to 
each  other  had  been  one  of  mutual  hostility,  which,  with  but  rare 
exceptions,  had  been  greatly  in  favor  of  the  latter  country.  The 
very  first  years  of  Maria  Teresa's  own  reign  had  been  imbittered 
by  the  union  of  France  with  Prussia  in  a  war  which  had  deprived 
her  of  an  extensive  province ;  and  she  regarded  it  as  one  of  the 
great  triumphs  of  Austrian  diplomacy  to  have  subsequently  won 
over  the  French  ministry  to  exchange  the  friendship  of  Frederick 
of  Prussia  for  her  own,  and  to  engage  as  her  ally  in  a  war  which 
had  for  its  object  the  recovery  of  the  lost  Silesia.  Silesia  was  not 
recovered.  But  she  still  clung  to  the  French  alliance  as  fondly 
as  if  the  objects  which  she  had  originally  hoped  to  gain  by  it  had 
been  fully  accomplished ;  and.  as  the  heir  to  the  French  monarchy 
was  very  nearly  of  the  same  age  as  the  young  archduchess,  she 
began  to  entertain  hopes  of  uniting  the  two  royal  families  by  a 
marriage  which  should  render  the  union  between  the  two  nations 
indissoluble.  She  mentioned  the  project  to  some  of  the  French 
visitors  at  her  court,  whom  she  thought  likely  to  repeat  her  con- 
versation on  their  return  to  their  own  country.  She  took  care 
that  reports  of  her  daughter's  beauty  should  from  time  to  time 
reach  the  ears  of  Louis  XV.  She  had  her  picture  painted  by 
French  artists.  She  made  a  proficiency  in  the  French  language 
the  principal  object  of  her  education ;  bringing  over  some  French 
actors  to  Vienna  to  instruct  her  in  the  graces  of  elocution,  and 
subsequently  establishing  as  her  chief  tutor  a  French  ecclesiastic, 
the  Abbe  de  Vermond,  a  man  of  extensive  learning,  of  excellent 
judgment,  and  of  most  conscientious  integrity.  The  appointment 
would  have  been  in  every  respect  a  most  fortunate  one,  had  it  not 
been  suggested  by  Lomenie  de  Brienne,  Archbishop  of  Toulouse, 
who  thus  laid  the  abbe  under  an  obligation  which  was  requited, 
to  the  great  injury  of  France,  nearly,  twenty  years  afterward,  when 
M.  de  Vermond,  who  still  remained  about  the  person  of  his  royal 


HER  EDUCATION.  23 

mistress,  had  an  opportunity  of  exerting  his  influence  to  make  the 
archbishop  prime  minister. 

Not  that  her  studies  were  confined  to  French.  Metastasio 
taught  her  Italian  ;  Gluck,  whose  recently  published  opera  of  "  Or- 
feo  "  had  established  for  him  a  reputation  as  one  of  the  greatest 
musicians  of  the  age,  gave  her  lessons  on  the  harpsichord.  But 
we  fear  it  can  not  be  said  that  she  obtained  any  high  degree  of 
excellence  in  these  or  in  any  other  accomplishments.  She  was 
not  inclined  to  study ;  and,  with  the  exception  of  the  abbe,  her 
masters  and  mistresses  were  too  courtly  to  be  peremptory  with 
an  archduchess.  Their  favorable  reports  to  the  Empress-queen 
were  indeed  neutralized  by  the  frankness  with  which  their  pupil 
herself  confessed  her  idleness  and  failure  to  improve.  But  Maria 
Teresa  was  too  much  absorbed  in  politics  to  give  much  heed  to 
the  confession,  or  to  insist  on  greater  diligence;  though  at  a  later 
day  Marie  Antoinette  herself  repented  of  her  neglect,  and  did  her 
best  to  repair  it,  taking  lessons  in  more  than  one  accomplishment 
with  great  perseverance  during  the  first  years  of  her  residence  at 
Versailles,  because,  as  she  expressed  herself,  the  dauphiness  was 
bound  to  take  care  of  the  character  of  the  archduchess. 

There  are,  however,  lessons  of  greater  importance  to  a  child 
than  any  which  are  given  by  even  the  most  accomplished  mas- 
ters— those  which  flow  from  the  example  of  a  virtuous  and  sensi- 
ble mother;  and  those  the  young  archduchess  showed  a  greater 
aptitude  for  learning.  Maria  Teresa  had  set  an  example  not  only 
to  her  own  family,  but  to  all  sovereigns,  among  whom  principles 
and  practices  such  as  hers  had  hitherto  been  little  recognized,  of 
regarding  an  attention  to  the  personal  welfare  of  all  her  subjects, 
even  of  those  of  the  lowest  class,  as  among  the  most  imperative  of 
her  duties.  She  had  been  accessible  to  all.  She  had  accustomed 
the  peasantry  to  accost  her  in  her  walks;  she  had  visited  their 
cottages  to  inquire  into  and  relieve  their  wants.  And  the  little 
Antoinette,  who,  more  than  any  other  of  her  children,  seems  to 
have  taken  her  for  an  especial  model,  had  thus,  from  her  very  ear- 
liest childhood,  learned  to  feel  a  friendly  interest  in  the  well-doing 
of  the  people  in  general ;  to  think  no  one  too  lowly  for  her  notice, 
to  sympathize  with  sorrow,  to  be  indignant  at  injustice  and  ingrat- 
itude, to  succor  misfortune  and  distress.  And  these  were  habits 
which,  as  being  implanted  in  her  heart,  she  was  not  likely  to  for- 
get ;  but  which  might  be  expected  rather  to  gain  strength  by  in- 
dulgence, and  to  make  her  both  welcome  and  useful  to  any  peo- 
ple among  whom  her  lot  might  be  cast. 


24  LIFE  OF  MAMIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Proposal  for  the  Marriage  of  Marie  Antoinette  to  the  Dauphin. — Early  Edu- 
cation of  the  Dauphin. — The  Archduchess  leaves  Vienna  in  April,  1770. — 
Her  Reception  at  Strasburg. — She  meets  the  King  at  Compiegne. — The 
Marriage  takes  place  May  16th,  1770. 

ROYAL  marriages  had  been  so  constantly  regarded  as  affairs  of 
state,  to  be  arranged  for  political  reasons,  that  it  had  become  usual 
on  the  Continent  to  betroth  princes  and  princesses  to  each  other 
at  a  very  early  age ;  and  it  was  therefore  not  considered  as  denot- 
ing any  premature  impatience  on  the  part  of  either  the  Empress- 
queen  or  the  King  of  France,  Louis  XV.,  when,  at  the  beginning 
of  1769,  when  Marie  Antoinette  had  but  just  completed  her  thir- 
teenth year,  the  Due  de  Choiseul,  the  French  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  who  was  himself  a  native  of  Lorraine,  instructed  the  Mar- 
quis de  Durfort,  the  French  embassador  at  Vienna,  to  negotiate 
with  the  celebrated  Austrian  prime  minister,  the  Prince  de  Kau- 
nitz,  for  her  marriage  to  the  heir  of  the  French  throne,  who  was 
not  quite  fifteen  months  older.  Louis  XV.  had  had  several  daugh- 
ters, but  only  one  son.  That  son,  born  in  1729,  had  been  mar- 
ried at  the  age  of  fifteen  to  a  Spanish  infanta,  who,  within  a  year 
of  her  marriage,  died  in  her  confinement,  and  whom  he  replaced 
in  a  few  months  by  a  daughter  of  Augustus  III.,  King  of  Saxony. 
His  second  wife  bore  him  four  sons  and  two  daughters.  The  eld- 
est son,  the  Due  de  Bourgogne,  who  was  born  in  1750,  and  was 
generally  regarded  as  a  child  of  great  promise,  died  in  his  eleventh 
year;  and  when  he  himself  died  in  1765,  his  second  son,  previous- 
ly known  as  the  Due  de  Berri,  succeeded  him  in  his  title  of  dau- 
phin. This  prince,  now  the  suitor  of  the  archduchess,  had  been 
born  on  the  23d  of  August,  1754,  and  was  therefore  not  quite  fif- 
teen. As  yet  but  little  was  known  of  him.  Very  little  pains  had 
been  taken  with  his  education ;  his  governor,  the  Due  de  la  Vau- 
guyon,  was  a  man  who  had  been  appointed  to  that  most  impor- 
tant post  by  the  cabals  of  the  infamous  mistress  and  parasites  who 
formed  the  court  of  Louis  XV.,  without  one  qualification  for  the 
discharge  of  its  duties.  A  servile,  intriguing  spirit  had  alone  rec- 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  DAUPHIN.  25 

ommended  him  to  his  patrons,  while  his  frivolous  indolence  was 
in  harmony  with  the  inclinations  of  the  king  himself,  who,  worn 
out  with  a  long  course  of  profligacy,  had  no  longer  sufficient  en- 
ergy even  for  vice.  Under  such  a  governor,  the  young  prince  had 
but  little  chance  of  receiving  a  wholesome  education,  even  if  there 
was  not  a  settled  design  to  enfeeble  his  mind  by  neglect. 

His  father  had  been  a  man  of  a  character  very  different  from 
that  of  the  king.  By  a  sort  of  natural  reaction  or  silent  protest 
against  the  infamies  which  he  saw  around  him,  he  had  cherished 
a  serious  and  devout  disposition,  and  had  observed  a  conduct  of 
the  most  rigorous  virtue.  He  was  even  suspected  of  regarding 
the  Jesuits  with  especial  favor,  and  was  believed  to  have  formed 
plans  for  the  reformation  of  morals,  and  perhaps  of  the  State.  It 
was  not  strange  that,  on  the  first  news  of  the  illness  which  proved 
fatal  to  him,  the  people  flocked  to  the  churches  with  prayers  for 
his  recovery,  and  that  his  death  was  regarded  by  all  the  right- 
thinking  portion  of  the  community  as  a  national  calamity.  But 
the  courtiers,  who  had  regarded  his  approaching  reign  with  not 
unnatural  alarm,  hailed  his  removal  with  joy,  and  were,  above  all 
things,  anxious  to  prevent  his  son,  who  had  now  become  the  heir 
to  the  crown,  from  following  such  a  path  as  the  father  had  mark- 
ed out  for  himself.  The  negligence  of  some,  thus  combining  with 
the  deliberate  malice  of  others,  and  aided  by  peculiarities  in  the 
constitution  and  disposition  of  the  young  prince  himself,  which 
became  more  and  more  marked  as  he  grew  up,  exercised  a  perni- 
cious influence  on  his  boyhood.  Not  only  was  his  education  in 
the  ordinary  branches  of  youthful  knowledge  neglected,  but  no 
care  was  even  taken  to  cultivate  his  taste  or  to  polish  his  man- 
ners, though  a  certain  delicacy  of  taste  and  refinement  of  man- 
ners were  regarded  by  the  courtiers,  and  by  Louis  XV.  him- 
self, as  the  pre-eminent  distinction  of  his  reign.  He  was  kept 
studiously  in  the  background,  discountenanced  and  depressed,  till 
he  contracted  an  awkward  timidity  and  reserve  which  throughout 
his  life  he  could  never  shake  off;  while  a  still  more  unfortunate 
defect,  which  was  another  result  of  this  system,  was  an  inability 
to  think  or  decide  for  himself,  or  even  to  act  steadily  on  the  ad- 
vice of  others  after  he  had  professed  to  adopt  it. 

But  these  deficiencies  in  his  character  had  as  yet  hardly  had 
time  to  display  themselves ;  and,  had  they  been  ever  so  notorious, 
they  were  not  of  a  nature  to  divert  Maria  Teresa  from  her  pur- 
pose. For  her  political  objects,  it  would  not,  perhaps,  have  seemed 


26  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

to  her  altogether  undesirable  that  the  future  sovereign  of  France 
should  be  likely  to  rely  on  the  judgment  and  to  submit  to  the  in- 
fluence of  another,  so  long  as  the  person  who  should  have  the  best 
opportunity  of  influencing  him  was  her  own  daughter.  A  nego- 
tiation for  the  success  of  which  both  parties  were  equally  anxious 
did  not  require  a  long  time  for  its  conclusion ;  and  by  the  begin- 
ning of  July,  1769,  all  the  preliminaries  were  arranged ;  the  French 
newspapers  were  authorized  to  allude  to  the  marriage,  and  to 
speak  of  the  diligence  with  which  preparations  for  it  were  being 
made  in  both  countries;  those  in  which  the  French  king  took  the 
greatest  interest  being  the  building  of  some  carriages  of  extraor- 
dinary magnificence,  to  receive  the  archduchess  as  soon  as  she 
should  have  arrived  on  French  ground ;  while  those  which  were 
being  made  in  Germany  indicated  a  more  elementary  state  of  civ- 
ilization, as  the  first  requisite  appeared  to  be  to  put  the  roads  be- 
tween Vienna  and  the  frontier  in  a  state  of  repair,  to  prevent  the 
journey  from  being  too  fatiguing. 

By  the  spring  of  the  next  year  all  the  necessary  preparations 
had  been  completed;  and  on  the  evening  of  the  16th  of  April, 
1770,  a  grand  court  was  held  in  the  Palace  of  Vienna.  Through 
a  double  row  of  guards  of  the  palace,  of  body-guards,  and  of  a 
still  more  select  guard,  composed  wholly  of  nobles,  M.  de  Durfort 
was  conducted  into  the  presence  of  the  Emperor  Joseph  II.,  and 
of  his  widowed  mother,  the  Empress  -  queen,  still,  though  only 
dowager-empress,  the  independent  sovereign  of  her  own  hereditary 
dominions;  and  to  both  he  proffered,  on  the  part  of  the  King  of 
France,  a  formal  request  for  the  hand  of  the  Archduchess  Marie 
Antoinette  for  the  dauphin.  When  the  Emperor  and  Empress 
had  given  their  gracious  consent  to  the  demand,  the  archduchess 
herself  was  summoned  to  the  hall  and  informed  of  the  proposal 
which  had  been  made,  and  of  the  approval  which  her  mother  and 
her  brother  had  announced  ;  while,  to  incline  her  also  to  regard  it 
with  equal  favor,  the  embassador  presented  her  with  a  letter  from 
her  intended  husband,  and  with  his  miniature,  which  she  at  once 
hung  round  her  neck.  After  which,  the  whole  party  adjourned 
to  the  private  theatre  of  the  palace  to  witness  the  performance  .of 
a  French  play,  "  The  Confident  Mother  "  of  Marivaux,  the  title  of 
which,  so  emblematic  of  the  feelings  of  Maria  Teresa,  may  proba- 
bly have  procured  it  the  honor  of  selection. 

The  next  day  the  young  princess  executed  a  formal  renunciation 
of  all  right  of  succession  to  any  part  of  her  mother's  dominions 


MARIE  ANTOINETTE  LEAVES  VIENNA.  27 

which  might  at  any  time  devolve  on  her ;  though  the  number  of 
her  brothers  and  elder  sisters  rendered  any  such  occurrence  in  the 
highest  degree  improbable,  and  though  one  conspicuous  precedent 
in  the  history  of  both  countries  had,  within  the  memory  of  per- 
sons still  living,  proved  the  worthlessness  of  such  renunciations.* 
A  few  days  were  then  devoted  to  appropriate  festivities.  That 
which  is  most  especially  mentioned  by  the  chroniclers  of  the 
court  being,  in  accordance  with  the  prevailing  taste  of  the  time, 
a  grand  masked  ball,f  for  which  a  saloon  four  hundred  feet  long 
had  been  expressly  constructed.  And  on  the  26th  of  April  the 
young  bride  quit  her  home,  the  mother  from  whom  she  had  nev- 
er been  separated,  and  the  friends  and  playmates  among  whom 
her  whole  life  had  been  hitherto  passed,  for  a  country  which  was 
wholly  strange  to  her,  and  in  which  she  had  not  as  yet  a  single 
acquaintance.  Her  very  husband,  to  whom  she  was  to  be  con- 
fided, she  had  never  seen. 

Though  both  mother  and  daughter  felt  the  most  entire  confi- 
dence that  the  new  position,  on  which  she  was  about  to  enter, 
would  be  full  of  nothing  but  glory  and  happiness,  it  was  inevita- 
ble that  they  should  be,  as  they  were,  deeply  agitated  at  so  com- 
plete a  separation.  And,  if  we  may  believe  the  testimony  'of  wit- 
nesses who  were  at  Vienna  at  the  time,J  the  grief  of  the  mother, 
who  was  never  to  see  her  child  again,  was  shared  not  only  by  the 
members  of  the  imperial  household,  whom  constant  intercourse 
had  enabled  to  know  and  appreciate  her  amiable  qualities,  but  by 
the  population  of  the  capital  and  the  surrounding  districts,  all  of 
whom  had  heard  of  her  numerous  acts  of  kindness  and  benevo- 
lence, which,  young  as  she  was,  many  of  them  had  also  experi- 
enced, and  who  thronged  the  streets  along  which  she  passed  on 
her  departure,  mingling  tears  of  genuine  sorrow  with  their  accla- 

*  "  Histoire  de  Marie  Antoinette,"  par  E.  and  J.  de  Goncourt,  p.  11. 

\  How  popular  masked  balls  were  in  London  at  this  time  may  be  learned 
from  Walpole's  "  Letters,"  and  especially  from  a  passage  in  which  he  gives  an 
account  of  one  given  by  "  sixteen  or  eighteen  young  Lords  "  just  two  months 
before  this  ball  at  Vienna. —  Walpole  to  Mann,  dated  February  27th,  1770. 
Some  one  a  few  years  later  described  the  French  nation  as  half  tiger  and 
half  monkey ;  and  it  is  a  singular  coincidence  that  Walpole's  comment  on 
this  masquerading  fashion  should  be,  "  It  is  very  lucky,  seeing  how  much  of 
the  tiger  enters  into  the  human  composition,  that  there  should  be  a  good  dose 
of  the  monkey  too." 

J  "  M6moires  concernant  Marie  Antoinette,"  par  Joseph  Weber  (her  fos- 
ter-brother), i.,  p.  6. 


28  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

mations,  and  following  her  carriage  to  the  outermost  gate  of  the 
city  that  they  might  gaze  their  last  on  the  darling  of  many  hearts. 
Kehl  was  the  last  German  town  through  which  she  was  to  pass. 
Strasburg  was  the  first  French  city  which  was  to  receive  her,  and, 
as  the  islands  which  dot  the  Rhine  at  that  portion  of  the  noble 
boundary  river  were  regarded  as  a  kind  of  neutral  ground,  the 
French  monarch  had  selected  the  principal  one  to  be  occupied  by 
a  pavilion  built  for  the  purpose  and  decorated  with  great  mag- 
nificence, that  it  might  serve  for  another  stage  of  the  wedding 
ceremony.  In  this  pavilion  she  was  to  cease  to  be  German,  and 
was  to  become  French ;  she  was  to  bid  farewell  to  her  Austrian 
attendants,  and  to  receive  into  her  service  the  French  officers  of 
her  household,  male  and  female,  who  were  to  replace  them.  She 
was  even  to  divest  herself  of  every  article  of  her  German  attire, 
and  to  apparel  herself  anew  in  garments  of  French  manufacture 
sent  from  Paris.  The  pavilion  was  divided  into  two  compart- 
ments. In  the  chief  apartment  of  the  German  division,  the  Aus- 
trian officials  who  had  escorted  her  so  far  formally  resigned  their 
charge,  and  surrendered  her  to  the  Comte  de  Noailles,  who  had 
been  appointed  embassador  extraordinary  to  receive  her ;  and, 
when  all  the  deeds  necessary  to  release  from  their  responsibility 
the  German  nobles  whose  duties  were  now  terminated  had  been 
duly  signed,  the  doors  were  thrown  open,  and  Marie  Antoinette 
passed  into  the  French  division,  as  a  French  princess,  to  receive 
the  homage  of  a  splendid  train  of  French  courtiers,  who  were 
waiting  in  loyal  eagerness  to  offer  their  first  salutations  to  their 
new  mistress.  Yet,  as  if  at  every  period  of  her  life  she  was  to 
be  beset  with  omens,  the  celebrated  German  writer,  Goethe,  who 
was  at  that  time  pursuing  his  studies  at  Strasburg,  perceived  one 
which  he  regarded  as  of  most  inauspicious  significance  in  the  tap- 
estry which  decorated  the  walls  of  the  chief  saloon.  It  repre- 
sented the  history  of  Jason  and  Medea.  On  one  side  was  portray- 
ed the  king's  bride  in  the  agonies  of  death ;  on  the  other,  the 
royal  father  was  bewailing  his  murdered  children.  Above  them 
both,  Medea  was  fleeing  away  in  a  car  drawn  by  fire-breathing 
dragons,  and  driven  by  the  Furies ;  and  the  youthful  poet  could 
not  avoid  reflecting  that  a  record  of  the  most  miserable  union 
that  even  the  ancient  mythology  had  recorded  was  a  singularly 
inappropriate  and  ill-omened  ornament  for  nuptial  festivities.* 

*  "  Goethe's  Biography,"  p.  287. 


HER  ENTRY  INTO  STRASBURQ.  29 

A  bridge  reached  from  the  island  to  the  left  bank  of  the  riv- 
er ;  and,  on  quitting  the  pavilion,  the  archduchess  found  the  car- 
riages, which  had  been  built  for  her  in  Paris,  ready  to  receive  her, 
that  she  might  make  her  state  entry  into  Strasburg.  They  were 
marvels  of  the  coach-maker's  art.  The  prime  minister  himself 
had  furnished  the  designs,  and  they  had  attracted  the  curiosity  of 
the  fashionable  world  in  Paris  throughout  the  winter.  One  was 
covered  with  crimson  velvet,  having  pictures,  emblematical  of  the 
four  seasons,  embroidered  in  gold  on  the  principal  panels ;  on  the 
other  the  velvet  was  blue,  and  the  elements  took  the  place  of  the 
seasons ;  while  the  roof  of  each  was  surmounted  by  nosegays  of 
flowers,  carved  in  gold,  enameled  in  appropriate  colors,  and  wrought 
with  such  exquisite  delicacy  that  every  movement  of  the  carriage, 
or  even  the  lightest  breeze,  caused  them  to  wave  as  if  they  were 
the  natural  produce  of  the  garden.* 

In  this  superb  conveyance  Marie  Antoinette  passed  on  under  a 
succession  of  triumphal  arches  to  the  gates  of  Strasburg,  which, 
on  this  auspicious  occasion,  seemed  as  if  it  desired  to  put  itself 
forward  as  the  representative  of  the  joy  of  the  whole  nation  by 
the  splendid  cordiality  of  its  welcome.  Whole  regiments  of  cav- 
alry, drawn  up  in  line  of  battle,  received  her  with  a  grand  salute 
as  she  advanced.  Battery  after  battery  pealed  forth  along  the 
whole  extent  of  the  vast  ramparts ;  the  bells  of  every  church  rang 
out  a  festive  peal ;  fountains  ran  with  wine  in  the  Grand  Square. 
She  proceeded  to  the  episcopal  palace,  where  the  archbishop,  the 
Cardinal  de  Rohan,  with  his  coadjutor,  the  Prince  Louis  de  Rohan 
(a  man  afterward  rendered  unhappily  notorious  by  his  complicity 
in  a  vile  conspiracy  against  her)  received  her  at  the  head  of  the 
most  august  chapter  that  the  whole  land  could  produce,  the  counts 
of  the  cathedral,  as  they  were  styled ;  the  Prince  of  Lorraine  being 
the  grand  dean,  the  Archbishop  of  Bordeaux  the  grand  provost, 
and  not  one  post  in  the  chapter  being  filled  by  any  one  below  the 
rank  of  count.  She  held  a  court  for  the  reception  of  all  the  fe- 
male nobility  of  the  province.  She  dined  publicly  in  state ;  a  pro- 
cession of  the  municipal  magistrates  presented  her  a  sample  of 
the  wines  of  the  district ;  and,  as  she  tasted  the  luscious  offering, 
the  coopers  celebrated  what  they  called  a  feast  of  Bacchus,  waving 
their  hoops  as  they  danced  round  the  room  in  grotesque  figures. 

It  was  a  busy  day  for  her,  that  first  day  of  her  arrival  on  French 

*  "  M6moires  de  Bachaumont,"  January  30th,  1770. 


30  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

soil.  From  the  dinner-table  she  went  to  the  theatre ;  on  quitting 
the  theatre,  she  was  driven  through  the  streets  to  see  the  illumi- 
nations, which  made  every  part  of  the  city  as  bright  as  at  midday, 
the  great  square  in  front  of  the  episcopal  palace  being  converted 
into  a  complete  garden  of  fire-works ;  and  at  midnight  she  at- 
tended a  ball  which  the  governor  of  the  province,  the  Marechal 
de  Contades,  gave  in  her  honor  to  all  the  principal  inhabitants  of 
the  city  and  district.  Quitting  Strasburg  the  next  day,  after  a 
grand  reception  of  the  clergy,  the  nobles,  and  the  magistrates  of 
the  province,  she  proceeded  by  easy  stages  through  Nancy,  Cha- 
lons, Rheims,  and  Soissons,  the  whole  population  of  every  town 
through  which  she  passed  collecting  on  the  road  to  gaze  on  her 
beauty,  the  renown  of  which  had  reached  the  least  curious  ears ; 
and  to  receive  marks  of  her  affability,  reports  of  which  were  at 
least  as  widely  spread,  in  the  cheerful  eagerness  with  which  she 
threw  down  the  windows  of  her  carriage,  and  the  frank,  smiling 
recognition  and  genuine  pleasure  with  which  she  replied  to  their 
enthusiastic  acclamations.  It  was  long  remembered  that,  when 
the  students  of  the  college  at  Soissons  presented  her  with  a  Latin 
address,  she  replied  to  them  in  a  sentence  or  two  in  the  same  lan- 
guage. 

Soissons  was  her  last  resting-place  before  she  was  introduced  to 
her  new  family.  On  the  afternoon  of  Monday,  the  14th  of  May, 
she  quit  it  for  Compiegne,  which  the  king  and  all  the  court 
had  reached  in  the  course  of  the  morning.  As  she  approached 
the  town  she  was  met  by  the  minister,  the  Due  de  Choiseul,  and 
he  was  the  precursor  of  Louis  himself,  who,  accompanied  by  the 
dauphin  and  his  daughters,  and  escorted  by  his  gorgeous  company 
of  the  guards  of  the  household,*  had  driven  out  to  receive  her. 
She  and  all  her  train  dismounted  from  their  carriages.  Her  mas- 
ter of  the  horse  and  her  "knight  of  honor"f  took  her  by  the 
hand  and  conducted  her  to  the  royal  coach.  She  sunk  on  her 
knee  in  the  performance  of  her  respectful  homage;  but  Louis 
promptly  raised  her  up,  and,  having  embraced  her  with  a  tender- 
ness which  gracefully  combined  royal  dignity  with  paternal  affec- 
tion, and  having  addressed  her  in  a  brief  speech,J  which  was 

*  La  maison  du  roi. 

•f-  Chevalier  d'honneur.  We  have  no  corresponding  office  at  the  English 
court 

\  The  king  said,  "  Vous  etiez  de  j£  de  la  famille,  car  votre  mere  a  1'ame  de 
Louis  le  Grand." — SAINTE-BEUVE,  Nouveaux  JJundw,  viii.,  p.  322. 


SHE  MEETS  THE  FRENCH  PRINCESS.  31 

specially  acceptable  to  her,  as  containing  a  well-timed  compliment 
to  her  mother,  introduced  her  to  the  dauphin ;  and,  when  they 
reached  the  palace,  he  also  presented  to  her  his  more  distant  rela- 
tives, the  princes  and  princesses  of  the  blood,*  the  Due  d'Orleans 
and  his  son,  the  Due  de  Chartres,  destined  hereafter  to  prove  one 
of  the  foulest  and  most  mischievous  of  her  enemies ;  the  Due  de 
Bourbon,  the  Princes  of  Conde  and  Conti,  and  one  lady  whose 
connection  with  royalty  was  Italian  rather  than  French,  but  to 
whom  the  acquaintance,  commenced  on  this  day,  proved  the  cause 
of  a  miserable  and  horrible  death,  the  beautiful  Princesse  de  Lam- 
balle. 

Compiegne,  however,  was  not  to  be  honored  by  the  marriage 
ceremony.  The  next  morning  the  whole  party  started  for  Ver- 
sailles, turning  out  of  the  road,  at  the  express  request  of  the  arch- 
duchess herself,  to  pay  a  brief  visit  to  the  king's  youngest  daugh- 
ter, the  Princess  Louise,  who  had  taken  on  herself  the  Carmelite 
vows,  and  resided  in  the  Convent  of  St.  Denis.  The  request  had 
been  suggested  by  Choiseul,  who  was  well  aware  that  the  princess 
shared  the  dislike  entertained  by  her  more  worldly  sisters  to  the 
house  of  Austria ;  but  it  was  accepted  as  a  personal  compliment 
by  the  king  himself,  who  was  already  fascinated  by  her  charms, 
which,  as  he  affirmed,  surpassed  those  of  her  portrait,  and  was 
predisposed  to  view  all  her  words  and  actions  in  the  most  favora- 
ble light.  Avoiding  Paris,  which  Louis,  ever  since  the  riots  of 
1750,  had  constantly  refused  to  enter,  they  reached  the  hunting- 
lodge  of  La  Muette,  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  for  supper.  Here 
she  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  brothers  and  sisters  of  her  f  ut- 
ure  husband,  the  Counts  of  Provence  and  Artois,  both  destined, 
in  their  turn,  to  succeed  him  on  the  throne ;  of  the  Princess  Clo- 
tilde,  who  may  be  regarded  as  the  most  fortunate  of  her  race,  in 
being  saved  by  a  foreign  marriage  and  an  early  death  from  wit- 
nessing the  worst  calamities  of  her  family  and  her  native  land  ;  of 
the  Princess  Elizabeth,  who  was  fated  to  share  them  in  all  their 
bitterness  and  horror ;  and  (a  strangely  incongruous  sequel  to  the 
morning  visit  to  the  Carmelite  convent),  the  Countess  du  Barri 
also  came  into  her  presence,  and  was  admitted  to  sup  at  the  royal 
table ;  as  if,  even  at  the  very  moment  when  he  might  have  been 


*  In  the  language  of  the  French  heralds,  the  title  princes  of  the  royal  fam- 
ily was  confined  to  the  children  or  grandchildren  of  the  reigning  sovereign. 
His  nephews  and  cousins  were  only  princes  of  the  blood. 


32  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

expected  to  conduct  himself  with  some  degree  of  respectful  de- 
cency to  the  pure-minded  young  girl  whom  he  was  receiving  into 
his  family,  Louis  XV.  was  bent  on  exhibiting  to  the  whole  world 
his  incurable  shamelessness  in  its  most  offensive  form. 

At  midnight  he,  with  the  dauphin,  proceeded  to  Versailles, 
whither,  the  next  morning,  the  archduchess  followed  them.  And 
at  one  o'clock  on  the  16th,  in  the  chapel  of  the  palace,  the  Pri- 
mate of  France,  the  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  performed  the  mar- 
riage ceremony.  A  canopy  of  cloth  of  silver  was  held  over  the 
heads  of  the  youthful  pair  by  the  bishops  of  Senlis  and  Chartres. 
The  dauphin,  after  he  had  placed  the  wedding-ring  on  his  bride's 
finger,  added,  as  a  token  that  he  endowed  her  with  his  worldly 
wealth,  a  gift  of  thirteen  pieces  of  gold, which,  as  well  as  the  ring, 
had  received  the  episcopal  benediction,  and  Marie  Antoinette  was 
dauphiness  of  France. 


THE  MARRIAGE  UNPOPULAR  IN  FRANCE  AND  AUSTRIA.     33 


CHAPTER  III. 

Feelings  in  Germany  and  France  on  the  Subject  of  the  Marriage. — Letter  of 
Maria  Teresa  to  the  Dauphin. — Characters  of  the  Different  Members  of  the 
Royal  Family. — Difficulties  which  .beset  Marie  Antoinette. — Maria  Teresa's 
Letter  of  Advice. — The  Comte  de  Mercy  is  sent  as  Embassador  to  France 
to  act  as  the  Adviser  of  the  Dauphiness. — The  Princesse  de  Lorraine  at 
the  State  Ball. — A  Great  Disaster  takes  place  at  the  Fire-works  in  Paris. — 
The  Peasant  at  Fontainebleau. — Marie  Antoinette  pleases  the  King. — De- 
scription of  her  Personal  Appearance. — Mercy's  Report  of  the  Impression 
she  made  on  her  First  Arrival. 

THE  marriage  which  was  thus  accomplished  was  regarded  with 
unmodified  pleasure  by  the  family  of  the  bride,  and  with  almost 
equal  satisfaction  by  the  French  king.  In  spite  of  the  public  re- 
joicings in  both  countries  with  which  it  was  accompanied,  it  can 
not  be  said  to  have  been  equally  acceptable  to  the  majority  of  the 
people  of  either  nation.  There  was  still  a  strong  anti-French  par- 
ty at  Vienna,*  and  (a  circumstance  of  far  greater  influence  on  the 
fortunes  of  the  young  couple)  there  was  a  strong  anti-Austrian 
party  in  France,  which  was  not  without  its  supporters  even  in  the 
king's  palace.  That  the  marriage  should  have  been  so  earnestly 
desired  at  the  imperial  court  is  a  strange  instance  of  the  extent  to 
which  political  motives  overpowered  every  other  consideration  in 
the  mind  of  the  great  Empress-queen,  for  she  was  not  ignorant  of 
the  real  character  of  the  French  court,  of  the  degree  in  which  it 
was  divided  by  factions,  of  the  base  and  unworthy  intrigues  which 
were  its  sole  business,  and  of  the  sagacity  and  address  which  were 
requisite  for  any  one  who  would  steer  his  way  with  safety  and 
honor  through  its  complicated  mazes. 

Judgment  and  prudence  were  not  the  qualities  most  naturally 
to  be  expected  in  a  young  princess  not  yet  fifteen  years  old.  The 
best  prospect  which  Marie  Antoinette  had  of  surmounting  the  nu- 
merous and  varied  difficulties  which  beset  her  lay  in  the  affection 
which  she  speedily  conceived  for  her  husband,  and  in  the  sincerity, 

*  The  word  is  Maria  Teresa's  own ;  "  anti-f rancais  "  occurring  in  more  than 
one  of  her  letters. 

3 


34  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

we  can  hardly  say  warmth,  with  which  he  returned  her  love.  Ma- 
ria Teresa  had  bespoken  his  tenderness  for  her  in  a  letter  which 
she  wrote  to  him  on  the  day  on  which  her  daughter  left  Vienna, 
and  which  has  often  been  quoted  as  a  composition  worthy  of  her 
alike  as  a  mother  and  as  a  Christian  sovereign ;  and  as  admirably 
calculated  to  impress  the  heart  of  her  new  son-in-law  by  claiming 
his  attachment  for  his  bride,  on  the  ground  of  the  pains  which  she 
had  taken  to  make  her  worthy  of  her  fortune. 

"  Your  bride,  my  dear  dauphin,  has  just  left  me.  I  do  hope 
that  she  will  cause  your  happiness.  I  have  brought  her  up  with 
the  design  that  she  should  do  so,  because  I  have  for  some  time 
foreseen  that  she  would  share  your  destiny. 

"  I  have  inspired  her  with  an  eager  desire  to  do  her  duty  to 
you,  with  a  tender  attachment  to  your  person,  with  a  resolution  to 
be  attentive  to  think  and  do  every  thing  which  may  please  you. 
I  have  also  been  most  careful  to  enjoin  her  a  tender  devotion  to- 
ward the  Master  of  all  Sovereigns,  being  thoroughly  persuaded 
that  we  are  but  badly  providing  for  the  welfare  of  the  nations 
which  are  intrusted  to  us  when  we  fail  in  our  duty  to  Him  who 
breaks  sceptres  and  overthrows  thrones  according  to  his  pleasure. 

"  I  say,  then,  to  you,  my  dear  dauphin,  as  I  say  to  my  daugh- 
ter: 'Cultivate  your  duties  toward  God.  Seek  to  cause  the  hap- 
piness of  the  people  over  whom  you  will  reign  (it  will  be  too  soon, 
come  when  it  may).  Love  the  king,  your  grandfather;  be  hu- 
mane like  him ;  be  always  accessible  to  the  unfortunate.  If  you 
behave  in  this  manner,  it  is  impossible  that  happiness  can  fail  to 
be  your  lot.'  My  daughter  will  love  you,  I  am  certain,  because  I 
know  her.  But  the  more  that  I  answer  to  you  for  her  affection, 
and  for  her  anxiety  to  please  you,  the  more  earnestly  do  I  entreat 
you  to  vow  to  her  the  most  sincere  attachment. 

"  Farewell,  my  dear  dauphin.  May  you  be  happy.  I  am 
bathed  in  tears."* 

The  dauphin  did  not  falsify  the  hopes  thus  expressed  by  the 
Empress-queen.  But  his  was  not  the  character  to  afford  his  wife 
either  the  advice  or  support  which  she  needed,  while,  strange  to 
say,  he  was  the  only  member  of  the  royal  family  to  whom  she 
could  look  for  either.  The  king  was  not  only  utterly  worthless 
and  shameless,  but  weak  and  .irresolute  in  the  most  ordinary  mat- 

*  Quoted  by  Mme.  du  Deffand.in  a.  .letter  io  Walpole,  dated  May  19th,  1770 
("  Correspondance  complete  de  Mme.  du  Deffand,"  ii.,  p.  59). 


DIFFICULTIES  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE.  35 

ters.  Even  when  in  the  flower  and  vigor  of  his  age,  he  had  never 
been  able  to  summon  courage  to  give  verbal  orders  or  reproofs  to 
his  own  children,*  but  had  intimated  his  pleasure  or  displeasure 
by  letters.  He  had  been  gradually  falling  lower  and  lower,  both 
in  his  own  vices  and  in  the  estimation  of  the  world ;  and  was  now, 
still  more  than  when  Lord  Chesterfield  first  drew  his  picture,f  both 
hated  and  despised.  The  dauphin's  brothers,  for  such  mere  boys, 
were  singularly  selfish  and  unamiable;  and  the  only  female  rela- 
tions of  her  husband,  his  aunts,  to  whom,  as  such,  it  would  have 
been  natural  that  a  young  foreigner  should  look  for  friendship  and 
advice,  were  not  only  narrow-minded,  intriguing,  and  malicious, 
but  were  predisposed  to  regard  her  with  jealousy  as  likely  to  in- 
terfere with  the  influence  which  they  had  hoped  to  exert  over 
their  nephew  when  he  should  become  their  sovereign. 

Marie  Antoinette  had,  therefore,  difficulties  and  enemies  to  con- 
tend with  from  the  very  first  commencement  of  her  residence  in 
France.  And  many  even  of  her  own  virtues  were  unfavorable  to 
her  chances  of  happiness,  calculated  as  they  were  to  lay  her  at  the 
mercy  of  her  ill-wishers,  and  to  deprive  her  of  some  of  the  de- 
fenses which  might  have  been  found  in  a  different  temperament. 
Full  of  health  and  spirits,  she  was  naturally  eager  in  the  pursuit 
of  enjoyment,  and  anxious  to  please  every  one,  from  feeling  noth- 
ing but  kindness  toward  every  one  ;  she  was  frank,  open,  and  sin- 
cere ;  and,  being  perfectly  guileless  herself,  she  was,  as  through  her 
whole  life  she  continued  to  be,  entirely  unsuspicious  of  unfriendli- 
ness, much  more  of  treachery  in  others.  Her  affability  and  con- 
descension combined  with  this  trustful  disposition  to  make  her 
too  often  the  tool  of  designing  and  grasping  courtiers,  who  sought 
to  gain  their  own  ends  at  her  expense,  and  who  presumed  on  her 
good-nature  and  inexperience  to  make  requests  which,  as  they  well 
knew,  should  never  have  been  made,  but  which  they  also  reckoned 
that  she  would  be  unwilling  to  refuse. 

But  lest  this  general  amiability  and  desire  to  give  pleasure  to 

*  Mercy  to  Marie-Therese,  August  4th,  1770",  •"tJerrespondance  secrete  en- 
tre  Marie-Therese  et  le  Comte  de  Mercy  Argenteau,  avec  des  Lettres  de  Marie- 
The>ese  et  Marie-Antoinette,"  par  M.  le  Chevalier  Alfred  d'Arneth,  i.,  p.  29. 
For  the  sake  of  brevity,  this  Collection  will  be  hereafter  referred  to  as  "  Ar- 
neth." 

f  "  The  King  of  France  is  both  hated  and  despised,  which  seldom  happens 
to  the  same  man." — LORD  CHESTERFIELD,  Letter  to  Mr.  Dayrolles,  dated  May 
19th,  1752. 


36  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

those  around  her  might  seem  to  impart  a  prevailing  tinge  of 
weakness  to  her  character,  it  is  fair  to  add  that  she  united  to 
these  softer  feelings,  robuster  virtues  calculated  to  deserve  and  to 
win  universal  admiration ;  though  some  of  them,  never  having  yet 
been  called  forth  by  circumstances,  were  for  a  long  time  unsus- 
pected by  the  world  at  large.  She  had  pride  —  pride  of  birth, 
pride  of  rank — though  never  did  that  feeling  show  itself  more  no- 
bly or  more  beneficially.  It  never  led  her  to  think  herself  above 
the  very  meanest  of  her  subjects.  It  never  made  her  indifferent 
to  the  interests,  to  the  joys  or  sorrows,  of  a  single  individual.  The 
idea  with  which  it  inspired  her  was,  that  a  princess  of  her  race 
was  never  to  commit  an  unworthy  act,  was  never  to  fail  in  purity 
of  virtue,  in  truth,  in  courage ;  that  she  was  to  be  careful  to  set 
an  example  of  these  virtues  to  those  who  would  naturally  look  up 
to  her ;  and  that  she  herself  was  to  keep  constantly  in  her  mind 
the  example  of  her  illustrious  mother,  and  never,  by  act,  or  word, 
or  thought,  to  discredit  her  mother's  name.  And  as  she  thus  re- 
garded courage  as  her  birthright,  so  she  possessed  it  in  abundance 
and  in  variety.  She  had  courage  to  plan,  and  courage  to  act; 
courage  to  resolve,  and  courage  to  adhere  to  the  resolution  once 
deliberately  formed ;  and,  above  all,  courage  to  endure  and  to  suf- 
fer, and,  in  the  very  extremity  of  misery,  to  animate  and  support 
others  less  royally  endowed. 

Such,  then,  as  she  was,  with  both  her  manifest  and  her  latent  ex- 
cellencies, as  well  as  with  those  more  mixed  qualities  which  had 
some  defects  mingled  with  their  sweetness,  Marie  Antoinette,  at 
the  age  of  fourteen  years  and  a  half,  was  thrown  into  a  world 
wholly  new  to  her,  to  guide  herself  so  far  by  her  own  discretion 
that  there  was  no  one  who  had  both  judgment  and  authority  to 
control  her  in  her  line  of  conduct  or  in  any  single  action.  She 
had,  indeed,  an  adviser  whom  her  mother  had  provided  for  her, 
though  without  allowing  her  to  suspect  the  nature  or  full  extent 
of  the  duties  which  she  had  imposed  upon  him.  Maria  Teresa  had 
been  in  some  respects  a  strict  mother,  one  whom  her  children  in 
general  feared  almost  as  much  as  they  loved  her ;  and  the  rigor- 
ous superintendence  on  some  points  of  conduct  which  she  had 
exercised  over  Marie  Antoinette  while  at  home,  she  was  not  in- 
clined wholly  to  resign,  even  after  she  had  made  her  apparently 
independent.  At  the  moment  of  her  departure  from  Vienna,  she 
gave  her  a  letter  of  advice  which  she  entreated  her  to  read  over 
every  month,  and  in  which  the  most  affectionate  and  judicious 


THE  COUNT  DE  MERCY-AItOENTEAU,  37 

counsel  is  more  than  once  couched  in  a  tone  of  very  authoritative 
command ;  the  whole  letter  showing  not  only  the  most  experi- 
enced wisdom  and  the  most  affectionate  interest  in  her  daughter's 
happiness,  but  likewise  a  thorough  insight  into  her  character,  so 
precisely  are  some  of  the  errors  against  which  the  letter  most  em- 
phatically warns  her  those  into  which  she  most  frequently  fell. 
And  she  appointed  a  statesman  in  whom  she  deservedly  placed 
great  confidence,  the  Count  de  Mercy- Argenteau,  her  embassador 
to  the  court  at  Versailles,  with  the  express  design  that  he  should 
always  be  at  hand  to  afford  the  dauphiness  his  advice  in  all  the 
difficulties  which  she  could  not  avoid  foreseeing  for  her ;  and  who 
should  also  keep  the  Empress-queen  herself  fully  informed  of  ev- 
ery particular  of  her  conduct,  and  of  every  transaction  by  which 
she  was  in  any  way  affected.  This  part  of  his  commission  was 
wholly  unsuspected  by  the  young  princess;  but  the  count  dis- 
charged such  portions  of  the  delicate  duty  thus  imposed  upon 
him  with  rare  discretion,  contriving  in  its  performance  to  combine 
the  strictest  fidelity  to  his  imperial  mistress  with  the  most  entire 
devotion  to  the  interests  of  his  pupil,  and  to  preserve  the  unquali- 
fied regard  and  esteem  of  both  mother  and  daughter  to  the  end 
of  their  lives.  Toward  the  latter,  as  dauphiness,  and  even  as 
queen,  he  stood  for  some  years  in  a  position  very  similar  to  that 
which  Baron  Stockmar  fills  in  the  history  of  the  late  Prince  Con- 
sort of  England,  being,  however,  more  frequent  in  his  admoni- 
tions, and  occasionally  more  severe  in  his  reproofs,  as  the  youth 
and  inexperience  of  Marie  Antoinette  not  unnaturally  led  her  into 
greater  mistakes  than  the  scrupulous  cohscientiousness  and  almost 
premature  prudence  of  the  prince  consort  ever  suffered  him  to 
commit-;  and  his  diligent  reports  to  the  Empress-queen,  amount- 
ing at  times  to  a  diary  of  the  proceedings  of  the  French  court, 
have  a  lasting  and  inestimable  value,  since  they  furnish  us  with 
so  trustworthy  a  record  of  the  whole  life  of  Marie  Antoinette  for 
the  first  ten  years  of  her  residence  in  France,*  of  her  actions,  her 
language,  and  her  very  thoughts  (for  she  ever  scorned  to  give  a 
reason  or  to  make  an  excuse  which  was  not  absolutely  and  strict- 
ly true),  that  there  is  perhaps  no  person  of  historical  importance 
whose  conduct  in  every  transaction  of  gravity  or  interest  is  more 
minutely  known,  or  whose  character  there  are  fuller  materials  for 
appreciating.  • 

*  Maria  Teresa  died  in  December,  1780. 


38  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

The  very  day  of  her  marriage  did  not  pass  without  her  re- 
ceiving a  strange  specimen  of  the  factious  spirit  which  prevailed 
at  the  court,  and  of  the  hollowness  of  the  welcome  with  which 
the  chief  nobles  had  greeted  her  arrival.  A  state  ball  was  given 
at  the  palace  to  celebrate  the  wedding,  and  as  the  Princess  of  Lor- 
raine, a  cousin  of  the  Emperor  Francis,  was  the  only  blood-rela- 
tion of  Marie  Antoinette  who  was  at  Versailles  at  the  time,  the 
king  assigned  her  a  place  in  the  first  quadrille,  giving  her  prec- 
edence for  that  occasion,  next  to  the  princes  of  the  blood.  It 
did  not  seem  a  great  stretch  of  courtesy  to  show  to  a  foreigner, 
even  had  she  not  been  related  to  the  princess  in  whose  honor  the 
ball  was  given ;  but  the  dukes  and  peers  fired  up  at  the  arrange- 
ment, as  if  an  insult  had  been  offered  them.  They  held  a  meet- 
ing at  which  they  resolved  that  no  member  of  their  families  should 
attend,  and  carried  out  their  resolution  so  obstinately  that  at  five 
o'clock,  when  the  dancing  was  to  commence,  except  the  royal 
princesses  there  were  only  three  ladies  in  the  room.  The  king, 
who,  following  the  example  of  Louis  XIV.,  acted  on  these  occa- 
sions as  his  own  master  of  ceremonies,  was  forced  to  send  special 
and  personal  orders  to  some  of  those  who  had  absented  them- 
selves to  attend  without  delay.  And  so  by  seven  o'clock  twelve 
or  fourteen  couples  were  collected*  (the  number  of  persons  ad- 
mitted to  such  entertainments  was  always  extremely  small),  and 
the  rude  disloyalty  of  the  protest  was  to  outward  appearance  ef- 
faced by  the  submission  of  the  recusants. 

But  all  the  troubles  which  arose  out  of  the  wedding  festivities 
were  not  so  easily  terminated.  Little  as  was  the  good-will  which 
subsisted  between  Louis  XV.  and  the  Parisians,  the  civic  authori- 
ties thought  their  own  credit  at  stake  in  doing  appropriate  honor 
to  an  occasion  so  important  as  the  marriage  of  the  heir  of  the 
monarchy,  and  on  the  30th  of  May  they  closed  a  succession  of 
balls  and  banquets  by  a  display  of  fire-works,  in  which  the  inge- 
nuity of  the  most  celebrated  artists  had  been  exhausted  to  out- 
shine all  previous  displays  of  the  sort.  Three  sides  of  the  Place 
Louis  XV.  were  filled  up  with  pyramids  and  colonnades.  Here 
dolphins  darted  out  many -colored  flames  from  their  ever -open 
mouths.  There,  rivers  of  fire  poured  forth  cascades  spangled  with 
all  the  variegated  brilliancy  with  which  the  chemist's  art  can  em- 
bellish the  work  of  the  pyrotechnist.  The  centre  was  occupied 

*  Mme.  du  Deffand,  letter  of  May  19th,  1770. 


ACCIDENT  AT  THE  ILLUMINATIONS.  39 

with  a  gorgeous  Temple  of  Hymen,  which  seemed  to  lean  for 
support  on  the  well-known  statue  of  the  king,  in  front  of  which 
it  was  constructed ;  and  which  was,  as  it  were,  to  be  carried  up  to 
the  skies  by  above  three  thousand  rockets  and  fire-balls  into  which 
it  was  intended  to  dissolve.  The  whole  square  was  packed  with 
spectators,  the  pedestrians  in  front,  the  carriages  in  the  rear,  when 
one  of  the  explosions  set  fire  to  a  portion  of  the  platforms  on 
which  the  different  figures  had  been  constructed.  At  first  the 
increase  of  the  blaze  was  regarded  only  as  an  ingenious  surprise 
on  the  part  of  the  artist.  But  soon  it  became  clear  that  the  con- 
flagration was  undesigned  and  real ;  panic  succeeded  to  delight, 
and  the  terror-stricken  crowd,  seeing  themselves  surrounded  with 
flames,  began  to  make  frantic  efforts  to  escape  from  the  danger ; 
but  there  was  only  one  side  of  the  square  uninclosed,  and  that 
was  blocked  up  by  carriages.  The  uproar  and  the  glare  made 
the  horses  unmanageable,  and  in  a  few  moments  the  whole  mass, 
human  beings  and  animals,  was  mingled  in  helpless  confusion, 
making  flight  impossible  by  their  very  eagerness  to  fly,  and  tram- 
pling one  another  underfoot  in  bewildered  misery.  Of  those 
who  did  succeed  in  extricating  themselves  from  the  square,  half 
made  their  way  to  the  road  which  runs  along  the  bank  of  the  riv- 
er, and  found  that  they  had  only  exchanged  one  danger  for  an- 
other, which,  though  of  an  opposite  character,  was  equally  de- 
structive. Still  overwhelmed  with  terror,  though  the  first  peril 
was  over,  the  fugitives  pushed  one  another  into  the  stream,  in 
which  great  numbers  were  drowned.  The  number  of  the  killed 
could  never  be  accurately  ascertained;  but  no  calculation  esti- 
mated the  number  of  those  who  perished  at  less  than  six  hundred, 
while  those  who  were  grievously  injured  were  at  least  as  many 
more. 

The  dauphin  and  dauphiness  were  deeply  shocked  by  a  disaster 
so  painfully  at  variance  with  their  own  happiness,  which,  in  one 
sense,  had  caused  it.  Their  first  thought  was,  as  far  as  they  might 
be  able,  to  mitigate  it.  Most  of  the  victims  were  of  the  poorer 
class,  the  grief  of  whose  surviving  relatives  was,  in  many  instances, 
aggravated  by  the  loss  of  the  means  of  livelihood  which  the  la- 
bors of  those  who  had  been  cut  off  had  hitherto  supplied ;  and, 
to  give  temporary  succor  to  this  distress,  the  dauphin  and  dauphin- 
ess  at  once  drew  out  from  the  royal  treasury  the  sums  allowed  to 
them  for  their  private  expenses  for  the  month,  and  sent  the  mon- 
ey to  the  municipal  authorities  to  be  applied  to  the  relief  of  the 


40  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

sufferers.  But  Marie  Antoinette  did  more.  She  felt  that  to  give 
money  only  was  but  cold  benevolence ;  and  she  made  personal 
visits  to  many  of  those  families  which  had  been  most  grievously 
afflicted,  showing  the  sincerity  of  her  sympathy  by  the  touching 
kindness  of  her  language,  and  by  the  tears  which  she  mingled 
with  those  of  the  widow  and  the  orphan.*  Such  unmerited  kind- 
ness made  a  deep  impression  on  the  citizens.  Since  the  time  of 
Henry  IV.  no  prince  had  ever  shown  the  slightest  interest  in  the 
happiness  or  misery  of  the  lower  classes ;  and  the  feeling  of  af- 
fectionate gratitude  which  this  unprecedented  recognition  of 
their  claims  to  be  sympathized  with  as  fellow-creatures  awakened 
was  fixed  still  more  deeply  in  their  hearts  a  short  time  afterward, 
when,  at  one  of  the  hunting-parties  which  took  place  at  Fontaine- 
bleau,  the  stag  charged  a  crowd  of  the  spectators  and  severely 
wounded  a  peasant  with  his  horns.  Marie  Antoinette  sprung  to 
the  ground  at  the  sight,  helped  to  bind  up  the  wound,  and  had 
the  man  driven  in  her  own  carriage  to  his  cabin,  whither  she  fol- 
lowed him  herself  to  see  that  every  proper  attention  was  paid  to 
him.f  And  the  affection  which  she  thus  inspired  among  the  poor 
was  fully  shared  by  the  chief  personage  in  the  kingdom,  the  sov- 
ereign himself.  A  life  of  profligacy  had  not  rendered  Louis 
wholly  insensible  to  the  superior  attractions  of  innocence  and 
virtue.  Perhaps  a  secret  sense  of  shame  at  the  slavery  in  which 
his  vices  held  him,  and  which,  as  he  well  knew,  excited  the  con- 
tempt of  even  his  most  dissolute  courtiers,  though  he  had  not  suf- 
ficient energy  to  shake  it  off,  may  have  for  a  moment  quickened 
his  better  feelings ;  and  the  fresh  beauty  of  the  young  princess, 
who,  from  the  first  moment  of  her  arrival  at  the  court,  treated 
him  with  the  most  affectionate  and  caressing  respect,  awakened 
in  him  a  genuine  admiration  and  good-will.  He  praised  her  beau- 
ty and  her  grace  to  all  his  nobles  with  a  warmth  that  excited  the 
jealousy  of  his  infamous  mistress,  the  Countess  du  Barri.  He 
made  allowance  for  some  childishness  of  manner  as  natural  at  her 
age,J  and  showed  an  anxiety  for  every  thing  which  could  amuse 
or  gratify  her,  which  afforded  a  marked  contrast  to  his  ordinary 
apathy.  And,  though  in  so  young  a  girl  it  was  rather  the  prom- 
ise of  future  beauty  than  its  developed  perfection  that  her  feat- 


*  Chambier,  i.,  p.  60.  f  Mme.  de  Campan,  i.,  p.  3. 

\  He  told  Mercy  she  was  " '  vive  et  un  peu  enfant,  mais,"  ajoutat-il,  "  cela 
est  rien  de  son  age.' " — ARNKTH,  i.,  p.  11. 


POPULARITY  OF  THE  DAUPHINESS.  41 

ures  as  yet  presented,  they  already  exhibited  sufficient  charms  to 
exempt  those  who  extolled  them  from  the  suspicion  of  flattery. 
A  clear  and  open  forehead,  a  delicately  cut  nose,  a  complexion  of 
dazzling  brilliancy,  with  bright  blue  eyes,  whose  ever-varying  lus- 
tre seemed  equally  calculated  to  show  every  feeling  which  could 
move  her  heart;  which  could  at  times  seem  almost  fierce  with 
anger,  indignation,  or  contempt,  but  whose  prevailing  expression 
was  that  of  kindly  benevolence  or  light-hearted  mirth,  were  united 
with  a  figure  of  exquisite  proportions,  sufficiently  tall  for  dignity, 
though  as  yet,  of  course,  slight  and  unformed,  and  every  move- 
ment of  which  was  directed  by  a  grace  that  could  neither  be 
taught  nor  imitated.  If  any  defect  could  be  discovered  in  her 
face,  it  consisted  in  a  somewhat  undue  thickness  of  the  lips,  es- 
pecially of  the  lower  lip,  which  had  for  some  generations  been 
the  prevailing  characteristic  of  her  family. 

Accordingly,  a  month  after  her  marriage,  Mercy  could  report 
to  Maria  Teresa  that  she  had  had  complete  success,  and  was  a 
universal  favorite ;  that,  besides  the  king,  who  openly  expressed 
his  satisfaction,  she  had  won  the  heart  of  the  dauphin,  who  had 
been  very  unqualified  in  the  language  in  which  he  had  praised 
both  her  beauty  and  her  agreeable  qualities  to  his  aunts;  and 
that  even  those  princesses  were  "enchanted"  with  her.  The 
whole  court,  and  the  people  in  general,  extolled  her  affability,  and 
the  graciousness  with  which  she  said  kind  things  to  all  who  ap- 
proached her.  Though  the  well-informed  embassador  had  already 
discovered  signs  of  the  cabals  which  the  mistress  and  her  parti- 
sans were  forming  against  her,  and  had  been  rendered  a  little  un- 
easy by  the  handle  which  she  had  more  than  once  afforded  to  her 
secret  enemies,  when,  "  in  gayety  of  heart  and  without  the  slight- 
est ill-will,"  she  had  allowed  herself  to  jest  on  some  persons  and 
circumstances  which  struck  her  as  ridiculous,  her  jests  being  sea- 
soned with  a  wit  and  piquancy  which  rendered  them  keener  to 
those  who  were  their  objects,  and  so  more  mischievous  to  herself. 
He  especially  praised  the  unaffected  dignity  with  which  she  had 
received  the  mistress  .who  had  attended  in  her  apartments  to  pay 
her  court,  though  in  no  respect  deceived  as  to  the  lady's  disposi- 
tion, her  penetration  into  the  characters  of  all  with  whom  she  had 
been  brought  into  contact,  denoting,  as  it  struck  him,  "  a  sagaci- 
ty "  which,  at  her  age,  was  "  truly  astonishing."* 

*  Arneth,  i.,  p.  9-16. 


42  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Marie  Antoinette  gives  her  Mother  her  First  Impressions  of  the  Court  and 
of  her  own  Position  and  Prospects. — Court  Life  at  Versailles. — Marie  An- 
toinette shows  her  Dislike  of  Etiquette. — Character  of  the  Due  d'Aiguillon. 
— Cabals  against  the  Dauphiness.  —  Jealousy  of  Mme.  du  Barri.  —  The 
Aunts,  too,  are  Jealous  of  Her. — She  becomes  more  and  more  Popular. — 
Parties  for  Donkey-riding. — Scantiness  of  the  Dauphiness's  Income. — Her 
Influence  over  the  King. — The  Due  de  Choiseul  is  dismissed. — She  begins 
to  have  Great  Influence  over  the  Dauphin. 

MARIE  ANTOINETTE  herself  was  inclined  to  be  delighted  with 
all  that  befell  her,  and  to  make  light  of  what  she  could  hardly 
regard  as  pleasant  or  becoming;  and  two  of  her  first  letters  to  her 
mother,  written  in  the  early  part  of  July,*  give  us  an  insight  into 
the  feelings  with  which  she  regarded  her  new  family  and  her  own 
position,  as  well  as  a  picture  of  her  daily  occupations  and  of  the 
singular  customs  of  the  French  court,  strangely  inconsistent  in 
what  it  permitted  and  in  what  it  disallowed,  and,  in  the  publicity 
in  which  its  princes  lived,  curiously  incompatible  with  ordinary 
ideas  of  comfort  and  even  delicacy. 

"  The  king,"  she  says,  "  is  full  of  kindnesses  toward  me,  and  I 
love  him  tenderly.  But  it  is  pitiable  to  see  his  weakness  for 
Madame  du  Barri,  who  is  the  silliest  and  most  impertinent  creat- 
ure that  it  is  possible  to  conceive.  She  has  played  with  us  every 
evening  at  Marly,  f  and  she  has  twice  been  seated  next  to  me ; 
but  she  has  not  spoken  to  me,  and  I  have  not  attempted  to  en- 
gage in  conversation  with  her ;  but,  when  it  was  necessary,  I  have 
said  a  word  or  two  to  her. 

"  As  for  my  dear  husband,  he  is  greatly  changed,  and  in  a  most 

*  Dates  9th  and  12th.,  Arneth,  i.,  pp.  16,  18. 

f  Marly  was  a  palace  belonging  to  the  king,  but  little  inferior  in  splendor 
to  Versailles  itself,  and  a  favorite  residence  of  Louis  XV.,  because  a  less 
strict  etiquette  had  been  established  there.  Choisy  and  Bellevue,  which  will 
often  be  mentioned  in  the  course  of  this  narrative,  were  two  others  of  the 
royal  palaces  on  a  somewhat  smaller  scale.  They  have  both  been  destroyed. 
Marly,  Choisy,  and  Bellevue  were  all  between  Versailles  and  Paris. 


HER  LETTERS  TO  MARIA   TERESA.  43 

advantageous  manner.  He  shows  a  great  deal  of  affection  for  me, 
and  is  even  beginning  to  treat  me  with  great  confidence.  He  cer- 
tainly does  not  like  M.  de  la  Vauguyon ;  but  he  is  afraid  of  him. 
A  curious  thing  happened  about  the  duke  the  other  day.  I  was 
alone  with  my  husband,  when  M.  de  la  Vauguyon  stole  hurriedly 
up  to  the  doors  to  listen.  A  servant,  who  was  either  a  fool  or  a 
very  honest  man,  opened  the  door,  and  there  stood  his  grace  the 
duke  planted  like  a  sentinel,  without  being  able  to  retreat.  I 
pointed  out  to  my  husband  the  inconvenience  that  there  was  in 
having  people  listening  at  the  doors,  and  he  took  my  remark  very 
well." 

She  did  not  tell  the  empress  the  whole  of  this  occurrence ;  she 
had  been  too  indignant  at  the  duke's  meanness  to  suppress  her 
feelings,  and  she  reproved  the  duke  himself  with  a  severity  which 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  misplaced. 

"Duke  de  la  Vauguyon,"  she  said,  "my  lord  the  dauphin  is 
now  of  an  age  to  dispense  with  a  governor ;  and  I  have  no  need 
of  a  spy.  I  beg  you  not  to  appear  again  in  my  presence."* 

Between  the  writing  of  her  first  and  second  letters  she  had 
heard  from  Maria  Teresa ;  and  she  "  can  not  describe  how  the 
affection  her  mother  expresses  for  her  has  gone  to  her  heart. 
Every  letter  which  she  has  received  has  filled  her  eyes  with  tears 
of  regret  at  being  separated  from  so  tender  and  loving  a  mother, 
and,  happy  as  she  is  in  France,  she  would  give  the  world  to  see 
her  family  again,  if  it  were  but  for  a  moment.  As  her  mother 
wishes  to  know  how  the  days  are  passed ;  she  gets  up  between 
nine  and  ten,  and,  having  dressed  herself  and  said  her  morning 
prayers,  she  breakfasts,  and  then  she  goes  to  the  apartments  of 
her  aunts,  where  she  usually  finds  the  king.  That  lasts  till  half- 
past  ten ;  then  at  eleven  she  has  her  hair  dressed. 

"  At  twelve,"  she  proceeds  to  say,  "  what  is  called  the  Chamber 
is  held,  and  there  every  one  who  does  not  belong  to  the  common 
people  may  enter.  I  put  on  my  rouge  and  wash  my  hands  be- 
fore all  the  world ;  the  men  go  out,  and  the  women  remain ;  and 
then  I  dress  myself  in  their  presence.  Then  comes  mass.  If 
the  king  is  at  Versailles,  I  go  to  mass  with  him,  my  husband, 
and  my  aunts;  if  he  is  not  there,  I  go  alone  with  the  dauphin, 
but  always  at  the  same  hour.  After  mass  we  two  dine  by  our- 
selves in  the  presence  of  all  the  world;  but  dinner  is  over  by 

*  M&n.  de  Goncourt,  quoting  a  MS.  diary  of  Hardy,  p.  85. 


44  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

half-past  one,  as  we  both  eat  very  fast.  From  the  dinner-table 
I  go  to  the  dauphin's  apartments,  and  if  he  has  business,  I  re- 
turn to  my  own  rooms,  where  I  read,  write,  or  work ;  for  I  am 
making  a  waistcoat  for  the  king,  which  gets  on  but  slowly,  though, 
I  trust,  with  God's  grace,  it  will  be  finished  before  many  years  are 
over.  At  three  o'clock  I  go  again  to  visit  my  aunts,  and  the  king 
comes  to  them  at  the  same  hour.  At  four  the  abb6*  comes  to 
me,  and  at  five  I  have  every  day  either  my  harpsichord-master  or 
my  singing-master  till  six.  At  half-past  six  I  go  almost  every 
day  to  my  aunts,  except  when  I  go  out  walking.  And  you  must 
understand  that  when  I  go  to  visit  my  aunts,  my  husband  almost 
always  goes  with  me.  At  seven  we  play  cards  till  nine  o'clock ; 
but  when  the  weather  is  fine  I  go  out  walking,  and  then  there  is 
no  play  in  my  apartments,  but  it  is  held  at  my  aunts'.  At  nine 
we  sup ;  and  when  the  king  is  not  there,  my  aunts  come  to  sup 
with  us ;  but  when  the  king  is  there,  we  go  after  supper  to  their 
rooms,  waiting  there  for  the  king,  who  usually  comes  about  a  quar- 
ter to  eleven ;  and  I  lie  down  on  a  grand  sofa  and  go  to  sleep  till  he 
comes.  But  when  he  is  not  there,  we  go  to  bed  at  eleven  o'clock." 
The  play-table  which  is  alluded  to  in  these  letters  was  one  of 
the  most  curious  and  mischievous  institutions  of  the  court.  Gam- 
bling had  been  one  of  its  established  vices  ever  since  the  time  of 
Henry  IV.,  whose  enormous  losses  at  play  had  formed  the  sub- 
ject of  Sully's  most  incessant  remonstrances.  And  from  the 
beginning  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  a  gaming-table  had  formed 
a  regular  part  of  the  evening's  amusement.  It  was  the  one  thing 
which  was  allowed  to  break  down  the  barrier  of  etiquette.  On 
all  other  occasions,  the  rules  which  regulated  who  might  and  who 
might  not  be  admitted  to  the  royal  presence  were  as  precise  and 
strict  as  in  many  cases  they  were  unreasonable  and  unintelligible. 
But  at  the  gaming-table  every  one  who  could  make  the  slightest 
pretensions  to  gentle  birth  was  allowed  to  present  himself  and 
stake  his  money  ;f  and  the  leveling  influence  of  play  was  almost 
as  fully  exemplified  in  the  king's  palace  as  in  the  ordinary  gam- 
ing-houses, since,  though  the  presence  of  royalty  so  far  acted  as  a 
restraint  on  the  gamblers  as  to  prevent  any  open  explosion,  accu- 
sations of  foul  play  and  dishonest  tricks  were  as  rife  as  in  the 
most  vulgar  company. 

*  De  Yermond,  who  had  accompanied  her  from  Vienna  as  her  reader, 
f  See  St.  Simon's  account  of  Dangeau,  i.,  p.  392. 


STRICTNESS  OF  THE  COURT  ETIQUETTE.  45 

Marie  Antoinette  was  winning  many  hearts  by  her  loveliness 
and  affability ;  but  she  could  not  scatter  her  kind  speeches  and 
friendly  smiles  among  all  with  whom  she  came  into  contact  with- 
out running  counter  to  the  prejudices  of  some  of  the  old  courtiers 
who  had  been  formed  on  a  different  system ;  to  whom  the  main- 
tenance of  a  rigid  etiquette  was  as  the  very  breath  of  their  nos- 
trils, and  in  whose  eyes  its  very  first  rule  and  principle  was  that 
princes  should  keep  all  the  world  at  a  distance.  Foremost  among 
these  sticklers  for  old  ideas  was  the  Countess  de  Noailles,  her 
principal  "  lady  of  honor,"  whose  uneasiness  on  the  subject  speed- 
ily became  so  notorious  as  to  give  rise  to  numerous  court  squibs 
and  satirical  odes,  the  authors  of  which  seemed  glad  to  compli- 
ment the  dauphin  and  to  vex  her  ladyship  at  the  same  time,  but 
who  could  not  be  deterred  by  these  effusions  from  lecturing  Marie 
Antoinette  on  her  disregard  of  her  rank,  and  on  the  danger  of 
making  herself  too  familiar,  till  she  provoked  the  young  princess 
into  giving  her  the  nickname  of  Madame  Etiquette ;  and,  no 
doubt,  in  her  childish  playfulness,  to  utter  many  a  speech  and  do 
many  an  act  whose  principal  object  was  to  excite  the  astonish- 
ment or  provoke  the  frowns  of  the  too  prim  lady  of  honor. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  though  she  often  pushed  her  strict- 
ness too  far,  Madame  de  Noailles  to  some  extent  had  reason  on 
her  side ;  and  that  a  certain  degree  of  ceremony  and  stately  re- 
serve is  indispensable  in  court  life.  It  is  a  penalty  which  those 
born  in  the  purple  must  pay  for  their  dignity,  that  they  can  have 
no  friend  on  a  perfect  equality  with  themselves ;  and  those  who 
in  different  ages  and  countries  have  tried  to  emancipate  them- 
selves from  this  law  of  their  rank  have  not  generally  won  even 
the  respect  of  those  to  whom  they  have  condescended,  and  still 
less  the  approbation  of  the  outer  world,  whose  members  have  per- 
haps a  secret  dislike  to  see  those  whom  they  regard  as  their  own 
equals  lifted  above  them  by  the  familiarity  of  princes. 

This,  however,  was  a  matter  of  comparatively  slight  importance. 
An  excess  of  condescension  is  at  the  worst  a  venial  and  an  amia- 
ble error ;  but  even  at  this  early  period  plots  were  being  contrived 
against  the  young  princess,  which,  if  successful,  would  have  been 
wholly  destructive  of  her  happiness,  and  which,  though  she  was 
fully  aware  of  them,  she  had  not  means  by  herself  to  disconcert 
or  defeat.  They  were  the  more  formidable  because  they  were 
partly  political,  embracing  a  scheme  for  the  removal  of  a  minis- 
ter, and  consequently  conciliated  more  supporters  and  insured 


46  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

greater  perseverance  than  if  they  had  merely  aimed  at  securing  a 
preponderance  of  court  favor  for  the  plotters.  Like  all  the  oth- 
er mistresses  who  had  successively  reigned  in  the  French  courts, 
Madame  du  Barri  had  a  party  of  adherents  who  hoped  to  rise  by 
her  patronage.  The  Due  de  Choiseul  himself  had  owed  his  pro- 
motion to  her  predecessor,  Madame  de  Pompadour,  and  those  who 
hoped  to  supplant  him  saw  in  a  similar  influence  the  best  pros- 
pect of  attaining  their  end.  One  of  the  least  respectable  of  the 
French  nobles  was  the  Due  d'Aiguillon.  As  Governor  of  Brit- 
tany, he  had  behaved  with  notorious  cowardice  in  the  Seven  Years' 
War.  He  had  since  been,  if  possible,  still  more  dishonored  by 
charges  of  oppression,  peculation,  and  subornation,  on  which  the 
authorities  of  the  province  had  prosecuted  him,  and  which  the 
Parisian  Parliament  had  pronounced  to  be  established.  But  no 
kind  of  infamy  was  a  barrier  to  the  favor  of  Louis  XV.  He  can- 
celled the  resolution  of  the  Parliament,  and  showed  such  counte- 
nance to  the  culprit  that  d'Aiguillon,  who  was  both  ambitious  and 
covetous,  conceived  the  idea  of  supplanting  Choiseul  in  the  Gov- 
ernment. As  one  of  Choiseul's  principal  measures  had  been  the 
negotiation  of  the  dauphin's  marriage,  Marie  Antoinette  was 
known  to  regard  him  with  a  good-will  which  was  founded  on 
gratitude.  But,  unfortunately,  her  feelings  on  this  point  were 
not  shared  by  her  husband ;  for  Choiseul  had  had  notorious  dif- 
ferences with  his  father,  the  late  dauphin,  and,  though  it  was 
perfectly  certain  that  that  prince  had  died  of  natural  disease,  peo- 
ple had  been  found  to  whisper  in  his  son's  ear  suspicions  that  he 
had  been  poisoned,  and  that  the  minister  to  whom  he  was  un- 
friendly had  been  concerned  in  his  death. 

The  two  plots,  therefore,  to  overthrow  the  minister  and  to 
weaken  the  influence  of  the  dauphiness,  went  hand-in-hand,  and,  as 
might  have  been  expected  from  the  character  of  the  patroness  of 
both,  no  means  were  too  vile  or  wicked  for  the  intriguers  who  had 
set  them  on  foot.  Madame  du  Barri  was,  indeed,  seriously  alarmed 
for  the  maintenance  of  her  own  ascendency.  The  king  took  such 
undisguised  pleasure  in  his  new  granddaughter's  company,  that 
some  of  the  most  experienced  courtiers  began  to  anticipate  that 
she  would  soon  gain  entire  influence  over  him.*  The  mistress 

*  The  Due  de  Noailles,  brother-in-law  of  the  countess,  "1'homme  de  France 
qui  a  peut-etre  le  plus  d'esprit  et  qui  connait  le  mieux  son  souverain  et  la 
cour,"  told  Mercy  in  August  that  "  jugeant  d'apres  son  experience  et  d'apres 
les  qualites  qu'il  voyait  dans  cette  princesse,  il  etait  persuade  qu'elle  gouverne- 
rait  un  jour  I'esprit  du  roi." — ARNKTH,  i.,  p.  34. 


INTRIGUES  AGAINST  MARIE  ANTOINETTE.  47 

began,  therefore,  to  disparage  her  personal  charms,  never  speaking 
of  her  to  Louis  ("  France,"  as  she  generally  called  him),  except  as 
"  the  little  blowsy,"*  while  her  ally,  De  la  Vauguyon,  endeavored 
to  further  her  views  by  exerting  the  influence  which  he  mis- 
takenly flattered  himself  that  he  still  retained  over  the  dauphin, 
to  surround  her  with  his  own  creatures.  He  tried  to  procure  the 
dismissal  of  the  Abbe  de  Vermond,  who,  having  been,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  tutor  of  Marie  Antoinette  at  Vienna,  still  remained  at- 
tached to  her  person  as  her  reader ;  and  whose  complete  knowledge 
of  all  the  ways  of  the  court,  joined  to  a  thorough  honesty  and  de- 
voted fidelity  to  her  best  interests,  rendered  his  services  most  val- 
uable to  his  mistress  in  her  new  sphere.  He  sought  to  recom- 
mend a  creature  of  his  own  as  her  confessor;  to  obtain  for  his 
own  daughter  the  appointment  of  one  of  her  chief  ladies ;  and, 
with  a  wickedness  peculiar  to  the  French  court,  he  even  endeav- 
ored to  imitate  the  vile  arts  by  which  the  Due  de  Richelieu  had 
deprived  Marie  Leczinska  of  the  affections  of  the  king,  to  alienate 
the  dauphin  from  his  young  wife,  and  to  induce  him  to  commit 
himself  to  the  guidance  of  Madame  du  Barri.  But  this  part  of 
the  scheme  failed.  The  dauphin  was  strangely  insensible  to  the 
personal  charms  of  Marie  Antoinette  herself,  and  was  wholly  in- 
accessible to  any  inferior  temptations ;  and,  as  far  as  the  arrange- 
ments of  the  court  were  concerned,  the  success  of  the  mistress's 
cabal  was  limited  to  procuring  the  dismissal  of  the  mistress  of 
the  robes,  the  Countess  de  Gramrnont,  for  refusing  to  cede  to 
Madame  du  Barri  and  some  of  her  friends  the  place  which  be- 
longed to  her  office  at  some  private  theatricals  which  were  held 
in  the  palace. 

Louis  XIV.  had  taught  his  nobles  the  pernicious  notion  that  an 
order  to  withdraw  from  the  court  was  a  penal  banishment,  and 
his  successor  now  banished  Madame  de  Grammont  fourteen 
leagues  from  Versailles,  and  for  some  time  refused  to  recall  his 
sentence,  though  Marie  Antoinette  herself  wrote  to  him  to  com- 
plain of  one  of  her  servants  being  so  treated  for  such  a  cause. 
She  had  not,  as  she  reported  to  her  mother,  been  very  willing  to 
write,  knowing  that  Madame  du  Barri  read  all  the  king's  letters ; 
but  Mercy  had  urged  her  to  take  the  step,  thinking  it  very  im- 
portant that  she  should  establish  the  practice  of  communicating 
directly  with  Louis  on  all  matters  relating  to  her  own  household, 

*  La  petite  rousse. 


48  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

and  that  she  should  avoid  the  blunder  of  his  daughters,  her  aunts, 
whose  conduct  toward  their  father  had,  in  his  opinion,  been  mis- 
chievously timid,  and  to  follow  whose  example  would  be  prejudi- 
cial both  to  her  dignity  and  to  her  comfort. 

The  aunts  too,  and  especially  the  eldest,  Madame  Adelaide,  had 
schemes  of  their  own,  which  they  also  sought  to  carry  out  by  un- 
derhand methods.  The  more  conscious  they  were  that  they  them- 
selves had  no  influence  over  their  father,  the  less  could  they  en- 
dure the  chance  of  their  niece  acquiring  any,  though  it  could  not 
have  been  said  to  have  been  established  at  their  expense.  On  the 
other  hand,  they  had  before  his  marriage  had  considerable  power 
with  the  dauphin,  which  they  had  now  but  little  hope  of  retain- 
ing. They  saw  also  that  Marie  Antoinette  had  in  a  few  weeks 
gained  a  general  popularity  such  as  they  had  never  won  in  their 
whole  lives,  and  on  all  these  accounts  they  were  painfully  jealous 
of  her.  They  put  ideas  and  plans  into  her  head  which  they  ex- 
pected to  grate  upon  their  father's  taste  or  indolence,  and  then 
contrived  to  have  them  represented  or  misrepresented  to  him, 
though  he  disappointed  their  malice  by  regarding  such  things  as 
childish  ebullitions  natural  to  a  girl  of  her  age,  and  was  far  more 
inclined  to  humor  than  to  reprove  her.  With  the  same  object, 
they  tried  to  induce  her  to  interfere  in  appointments  in  which  she 
had  no  concern ;  but  she  remembered  her  mother's  advice,  and 
on  this  point  kept  steadily  in  the  path  which  that  affectionate 
adviser  had  marked  out  for  her.  They  even  ventured  to  make 
disparaging  observations  on  her  manners,  as  inexperienced  and 
unformed,  to  the  dauphin  himself,  till  he  silenced  them  by  the 
warmth  of  his  praises  alike  of  her  beauty  and  of  her  disposition ; 
and  they  were  so  afraid  of  any  addition  to  her  popularity  with 
the  nation  at  large,  that,  when  the  city  of  Paris  and  the  states  of 
Languedoc  presented  her  with  an  address,  they  recommended  her 
to  make  no  reply,  assuring  her  that  on  similar  occasions  they 
themselves  had  never  given  any  answers.  Luckily,  she  had  a  bet- 
ter adviser,  who  on  this  occasion  was  the  Abbe  de  Vermond.  He 
told  her  truly  that  in  this  matter  the  conduct  which  the  older 
princesses  had  pursued  was  a  warning,  not  a  pattern :  that  they 
had  made  all  France  discontented ;  and  at  his  suggestion  Marie 
Antoinette  gave  to  each  address  "  an  answer  full  of  graciousness, 
with  which  the  public  was  enchanted." 

Thus  in  the  first  year  of  her  marriage,  by  her  kindness  of  heart, 
guided  by  the  advice  of  Mercy  and  the  abbe,  to  which  she  list- 


A   WISH  TO  LEARN  TO  RIDE.  49 

ened  with  the  greatest  docility,  she  had  won  general  affection,  and 
had  made  no  enemies  but  those  whose  enmity  was  an  honor.  She 
was,  as  she  wrote  to  her  mother,  perfectly  happy,  though,  had  she 
not  wished  to  make  the  best  of  matters,  she  was  not,  in  fact, 
wholly  free  from  disappointments  and  vexations,  some  of  which 
continued  for  years  to  cause  her  uneasiness  and  anxiety,  though 
others  were  comparatively  trivial  or  temporary,  while  one  was  of 
an  almost  comical  nature. 

She  had  conceived  a  great  desire  to  learn  to  ride.  Her  mother 
had  been  a  great  horsewoman ;  and,  as  the  dauphin,  like  the  king, 
was  passionately  addicted  to  hunting,  which  hitherto  she  had  only 
witnessed  from  a  carriage,  Marie  Antoinette  not  unnaturally  de- 
sired to  be  mistress  of  an  accomplishment  which  would  enable  her 
to  give  him  more  of  her  companionship.  Unluckily  Mercy  dis- 
approved of  the  idea.  It  is  impossible  to  read  his  correspondence 
with  the  empress,  and  in  subsequent  years  with  Marie  Antoinette 
herself,  without  being  forcibly  impressed  with  respect  for  his 
consummate  prudence,  his  sound  judgment  in  matters  of  public 
policy,  and  his  unswerving  fidelity  to  the  interests  of  both  mother 
and  daughter.  But  at  the  same  time  it  is  difficult  to  avoid  seeing 
that  he  was  too  little  inclined  to  make  allowance  for  the  youthful 
eagerness  for  amusements  which  was  natural  to  her  age,  and  that 
at  times  he  carried  his  supervision  into  matters  on  which  his 
statesman-like  experience  and  sagacity  had  hardly  qualified  him  to 
form  an  opinion.  He  was  proud  of  his  princess's  beauty;  and, 
considering  himself  in  charge  of  her  figure  as  well  as  of  her  con- 
duct, he  had  made  himself  very  uneasy  by  the  fancied  discovery 
that  she  was  becoming  crooked.  He  was  sure  that  one  shoulder 
was  growing  higher  than  the  other;  he  earnestly  recommended 
stays,  and  was  very  much  displeased  with  her  aunts  for  setting 
her  against  them,  because  they  were  not  fashionable  in  Paris. 
And  when  the  horse  exercise  was  proposed,  he  set  his  face  against 
it;  he  wrote  to  Maria  Teresa,  who  agreed  with  him  in  thinking 
it  ruinous  to  the  complexion,  injurious  to  the  shape,  and  not  to 
be  safely  indulged  in  under  thirty  years  of  age  ;*  and,  lest  distance 
should  weaken  the  authority  of  the  empress,  he  enlisted  Madame 
de  Noailles  and  Choiseul  on  his  side,  and  Choiseul  persuaded  the 
king  that  it  was  a  very  objectionable  pastime  for  a  young  bride. 

*  "  De  monter  ii  cheval  gftte  le  teint,  et  votre  taille  U  la  longue  s'en  ressen- 
tira." — Marie-  Therese  d  Marie-Antoinette,  Arneth,  i.,  p.  104. 

4 


50  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

There  was  not  as  yet  the  slightest  prospect  of  the  dauphiness  be- 
coming a  mother  (a  circumstance  which  was,  in  fact,  the  most 
serious  of  her  vexations,  and  that  which  lasted  longest) :  but  the 
king  on  this  point  agreed  with  his  minister,  and  after  some  dis- 
cussion a  compromise  was  hit  upon,  and  it  was  decided  that  she 
might  ride  a  donkey.  The  whole  country  was  immediately  ran- 
sacked for  a  stud  of  quiet  donkeys.*  In  September  the  court 
moved  to  Compiegne,  and  day  after  day,  while  the  king  and  the 
dauphin  were  shooting  in  one  part  of  the  woods,  on  the  other 
side  a  cavalcade  of  donkey-riders,  the  aunts  and  the  king's  broth- 
ers all  swelling  Marie  Antoinette's  train,  trotted  up  and  down  the 
glades,  and  sought  out  shady  spots  for  rural  luncheons  out-of- 
doors  ;  and,  though  even  this  pastime  was  occasionally  found  liable 
to  as  much  danger  as  an  expedition  on  nobler  steeds,  the  merry 
dauphiness  contrived  to  extract  amusement  for  herself  and  her 
followers  from  her  very  disasters.  It  was  long  a  standing  joke 
that  on  one  occasion,  when  her  donkey  and  herself  came  down  in 
a  soft  place,  her  royal  highness,  before  she  would  allow  her  at- 
tendants to  extricate  her  from  the  mud,  bid  them  go  to  Madame 
de  Noailles,  and  ask  her  what  the  rules  of  etiquette  prescribed  when 
a  dauphiness  of  France  failed  to  keep  her  seat  upon  a  donkey. 

She  had  also  another  annoyance  which  was  even  of  a  less  royal 
character  than  being  doomed  to  ride  on  a  donkey.  She  had  ab- 
solutely no  pocket-money.  For  many  generations  the  princes  of 
the  country  had  been  accustomed  to  dip  their  hands  so  unrestrain- 
edly into  the  national  treasury,  that  their  legitimate  appointments 
had  been  fixed  on  a  very  moderate,  if  not  scanty,  scale ;  so  that 
any  one  who,  like  the  dauphin  and  dauphiness,  might  be  scrupu- 
lous not  to  exceed  their  income  (though  that  scruple  had  proba- 
bly affected  no  one  before)  could  not  fail  to  be  greatly  straitened. 
The  allowance  of  Marie  Antoinette  was  fixed  at  no  higher  amount 
than  six  thousand  francs  a  month ;  and  of  this  small  sum,  accord- 
ing to  a  report  which,  in  the  course  of  the  autumn,  Mercy  made 
to  the  empress,  not  a  single  crown  really  reached  the  princess  for 
her  private  use.f  Nearly  half  of  the  money  was  stopped  to  pay 

*  "  On  fit  chercher  partout  des  anes  fort  doux  et  tranquilles.  Le  21  on 
rdpeta  la  promenade  sur  les  anes.  Mesdames  voulurent  etre  de  la  partie 
ainsi  que  le  Comte  de  Provence  et  le  Comte  d'Artois." — Mercy  d  Marle-The- 
rtse,  Septembre'  19,  1770,  Arneth,  i.,  p.  49. 

f  "  Madame  la  Dauphine,  a  laquelle  le  tre'sor  royal  doit  remettre  6000  frs. 
par  mois,  n'a  re'ellement  pas  un  e'en  dont  elle  pent  disposer  elle-meme  et  sans 
le  concours  de  personne  "  (Octobre  20). — ARXETH,  i.,  p.  69. 


SETTLEMENT  OF  HER  INCOME.  51 

some  pensions  granted  by  Marie  Leczinska,  with  which  the  dau- 
phiness  could  by  no  possibility  have  the  slightest  concern.  Al- 
most as  much  more  was  intrusted  to  the  gentlemen  of  her  chamber 
for  the  expenses  of  the  play  table,  at  which  she  was  expected  to 
preside,  since  there  was  no  queen  to  discharge  that  duty;  and 
whether  her  royal  highness's  cards  won  or  lost,  the  money  equally 
disappeared,*  and  the  remainder  was  distributed  in  presents  to  her 
ladies,  at  the  discretion  of  Madame  de  Noailles.  Had  not  Maria 
Teresa,  when  she  first  quit  Vienna,  intrusted  Mercy  with  a  thou- 
sand pounds  for  her  use,  and  had  she  not  herself  been  singularly 
economical  in  her  ideas,  she  would  have  been  in  the  humiliating 
position  of  being  unable  to  provide  for  her  own  most  ordinary 
wants,  and,  a  matter  about  which  she  was  even  more  anxious,  for 
her  constant  charities.  Yet  so  inveterate  was  the  mismanage- 
ment in  both  the  court  and  the  government,  that  it  was  some 
time  before  Mercy  could  succeed,  by  the  strongest  remonstrances 
supported  by  clear  proofs  of  the  real  situation  of  her  royal  high- 
ness, in  getting  her  affairs  and  her  resources  placed  upon  a  proper 
footing. 

In  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  the  cabal,  the  king's  regard  for  her 
increased  daily.  He  had  not  for  many  years  been  used  to  being 
treated  with  respect,  and  she,  not  from  any  artfulness,  but  from 
her  native  propriety  of  feeling,  which  forbade  her  ever  to  forget 
that  he  was  her  husband's  grandfather  and  her  king,  united  a  tone 
of  the  most  loyal  respect  with  her  filial  caresses.  She  called  him 
papa,  and  even  paid  him  the  tacit  compliment  of  grounding  occa- 
sional requests  on  considerations  of  humanity  and  justice,  little 
as  such  motives  had  ever  influenced  Louis,  and  rarely  as  their 
names  had  of  late  been  heard  in  the  precincts  of  the  palace.  She 
even  induced  him  to  pardon  Madame  de  Grammont ;  insisting  on 
such  a  concession  as  due  to  herself,  when  she  demanded  it  for  one 
of  her  own  retinue,  till  he  laughed,  and  replied,  "  Madame,  your 
orders  shall  be  executed."  And  the  steadiness  she  thus  showed 
in  protecting  her  own  servants  won  her  many  hearts  among  the 
courtiers,  at  the  same  time  that  it  filled  her  aunts  with  astonish- 
ment, who,  while  commending  her  firmness,  could  not  avoid  add- 
ing that  "it  was  easy  to  see  that  she  did  not  belong  to  their 

*  "  Sea  gar9ons  de  chambre  rc9oivent  cent  louis  [a  louis  was  twenty-four 
francs,  so  that  the  hundred  made  2400  francs  out  of  her  6000]  par  mois  pour 
la  depense  du  jeu  de  S.  A.  R. ;  et  soit  qu'elle  perde  ou  qu'elle  gagne,  on  ne 
revolt  rien  de  cette  somme." — ARNETH,  i. 


52  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

race."*  And  how  strong  as  well  as  how  general  was  the  feeling 
of  respect  and  good-will  which  she  had  thus  diffused  was  seen  in  a 
remarkable  manner  at  some  of  the  private  theatricals,  which  were 
a  frequent  diversion  of  the  king,  when  the  actor,  at  the  end  of 
one  of  his  songs,  introduced  some  verses  which  he  had  composed 
in  her  honor,  and  the  whole  body  of  courtiers  who  were  present 
showed  their  approbation  by  a  vehement  clapping  of  their  hands, 
in  defiance  of  a  standing  order  of  the  court,  which  prohibited  any 
such  demonstrations  being  made  in  the  sovereign's  presence.f 

It,  however,  more  than  counterbalanced  these  triumphs  that, 
before  the  end  of  the  year,  the  cabal  of  the  mistress  succeeded  in 
procuring  the  dismissal  of  Choiseul,  and  the  appointment  of  the 
Due  d'Aiguillon  as  minister.  For  Choiseul  had  been  not  only  a 
faithful,  but  a  most  judicious,  friend  to  her.  If  others  showed  too 
often  that  they  regarded  her  as  a  foreigner,  he  only  remembered 
it  as  a  reason  for  giving  her  hints  as  to  the  feelings  of  the  nation 
or  of  individuals  which  a  native  would  not  have  required.  And 
she  thankfully  Acknowledged  that  his  suggestions  had  always  been 
both  kind  and  useful,  and  expressed  her  sense  of  her  obligations 
to  him,  and  her  concern  at  his  dismissal  to  her  mother,  who  fully 
shared  her  feelings  on  the  subject. 

And,  encouraged  by  this  victory  over  her  most  powerful  adher- 
ent, the  cabal  began  to  venture  to  attack  Marie  Antoinette  herself. 
They  surrounded  her  with  spies ;  they  even  spread  a  report  that 
Louis  had  begun  to  see  through  and  to  distrust  her,  in  the  hope 
that,  when  it  should  reach  the  king's  own  ears,  it  might  perhaps 
lay  the  foundation  of  the  alienation  which  it  pretended  to  assert ; 
and  they  grew  the  bolder  because  the  king's  next  brother  was 
about  to  be  married  to  a  Savoyard  princess,  of  whose  favor  De  la 
Vauguyon  flattered  himself  that  he  was  already  assured.  Under 
these  circumstances  Marie  Antoinette  behaved  with  consummate 
prudence,  as  far  at  least  as  her  enemies  were  concerned.  She 
despised  the  efforts  made  to  lower  her  in  the  general  estimation 
so  completely  that  she  seemed  wholly  unconscious  of  them.  She 
did  not  even  allow  herself  to  be  provoked  into  treating  the  au- 
thors of  the  calumnies  with  additional  coldness ;  but  gave  no  han- 
dle to  any  of  them  to  complain  of  her,  so  that  the  critical  and 


*  "  Mme.  Adelaide  ajouta,  '  On  voit  bien  que  vous  n'etes  pas  de  notre  sang.' " 
-ARNETH,  i.,  p.  94. 
f  Arneth,  i.,  p.  95. 


SLEDGING  PARTIES.  53 

anxious  eyes  of  Mercy  himself  found  nothing  to  wish  altered  in 
her  conduct  toward  them.*  And  throughout  the  winter  she  pur- 
sued the  even  tenor  of  her  way,  making  herself  chiefly  remarkable 
by  almost  countless  acts  of  charity,  which  she  dispensed  with  such 
judgment  as  showed  that  they  proceeded,  not  from  a  heedless 
disregard  of  money,  but  from  a  thoughtful  and  vigilant  kindness, 
which  did  not  think  the  feelings  any  more  than  the  necessities  of 
the  poor  beneath  her  notice. 

Circumstances  to  which  she  contributed  only  indirectly  enhanced 
her  popularity  and  weakened  the  effects  of  the  mistress's  hostil- 
ity. Versailles  had  not  been  so  gay  for  many  winters,  and  the 
votaries  of  mere  amusement,  always  a  strong  party  at  every  court, 
rejoiced  at  the  addition  to  the  royal  family  to  whom  the  gayety 
was  owing.  Louis  roused  himself  to  gratify  the  young  princess, 
who  enlivened  his  place  with  the  first  respectable  pleasures  which 
it  or  he  had  known  for  years.  When  he  saw  that  she  liked  dra- 
matic performances,  he  opened  the  private  theatre  of  the  palace 
twice  a  week.  Because  she  was  fond  of  dancing,  he  encouraged 
her  to  have  a  weekly  ball  in  her  own  apartments,  at  which  she 
herself  was  the  principal  attraction,  not  solely  by  the  elegance  of 
her  every  movement,  but  still  more  by  the  graciousness  with  which 
she  received  and  treated  her  guests,  having  a  kind  smile  and  an 
affable  word  for  all,  apparently  forgetting  her  rank  in  the  frank- 
ness of  her  condescension,  yet  at  the  same  time  bearing  herself 
with  an  innate  dignity  which  prevented  the  most  forward  from 
presuming  on  her  kindness  or  venturing  on  any  undue  familiar- 
ity.f 

The  winter  of  1770  was  one  of  unusual  severity;  and  she 
found  resources  for  a  further  enlivenment  of  the  court  in  the 
frost  itself.  Sledging  on  the  snow  was  an  habitual  pastime  at 
Vienna,  where  the  cold  is  more  severe  than  at  Paris ;  nor  in  for- 
mer years  had  sledges  been  wholly  unknown  in  the  Bois  de  Bou- 
logne. And  now  Marie  Antoinette,  whose  hardy  habits  made  ex- 
ercise in  the  fresh  air  almost  a  necessity  for  her,  had  sledges  built 
for  herself  and  her  attendants ;  and  the  inhabitants  of  Versailles 
and  the  neighborhood,  as  fond  of  novelty  as  all  their  countrymen, 
were  delighted  at  the  merry  sledging-parties  which,  as  long  as  the 

*  "  Finalement,  Mme.  la  Dauphine  se  fait  adorer  de  ses  entours  et  du  pub- 
lic ;  il  n'est  pas  encore  survenu  un  seul  inconvenient  grave  dans  sa  conduite." 
— Mercy  d  Marie-TTiertse,  Novembre  16,  Arneth,  i.,  p.  98. 

f  Prince  de  Ligne,  "  M&n.,"  ii.,  p.  79. 


54  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

snow  lasted,  explored  the  surrounding  country,  while  the  woods 
rang  with  the  horses'  bells,  and,  almost  as  loudly  and  still  more 
cheerfully,  with  the  laughter  of  the  company. 

Her  liveliness  had,  as  it  were,  given  a  new  tone  to  the  whole 
court ;  and  though  the  dauphin  held  out  longer  against  the  genial 
influence  of  his  wife's  disposition  than  most  people,  it  at  last  in 
some  degree  thawed  even  his  frigidity.  She  ascribed  his  apathy 
and  apparent  dislike  to  female  society  rather  to  the  neglect  or 
malice  of  his  early  tutors  than  to  any  natural  defect  of  capacity  or 
perversity  of  disposition ;  and  often  lectured  him  on  his  deficien- 
cies, and  even  on  some  of  his  favorite  pursuits,  which  she  looked 
upon  as  contributing  to  strengthen  his  shyness  with  ladies.  She 
was  not  unacquainted  with  English  literature,  in  which  the  rustic- 
ity and  coarseness  of  the  fox-hunting  squires  formed  a  piquant 
subject  for  the  mirth  of  dramatists  and  novelists ;  and  if  Squire 
Western  had  been  the  type  of  sportsmen  in  all  countries,  she 
could  not  have  inveighed  more  vigorously  than  she  did  against 
her  husband's  addiction  to  hunting.  One  evening,  when  he  did 
not  return  from  the  field  till  the  play  in  the  theatre  was  half  over, 
she  not  only  frowned  upon  him  all  the  rest  of  the  entertainment, 
but  when,  after  the  company  had  retired,  he  began  to  enter  into 
an  explanation  of  the  cause  of  his  delay,  a  scene  ensued  which  it 
will  be  best  to  give  in  the  very  words  of  Mercy's  report  to  the 
empress. 

"  The  dauphiness  made  him  a  short  but  very  energetic  sermon, 
in  which  she  represented  to  him  with  vivacity  all  the  evils  of  the 
uncivilized  kind  of  life  he  was  leading.  She  showed  him  that  no 
one  of  his  attendants  could  stand  that  kind  of  life,  and  that  they 
would  like  it  the  less  that  his  own  air  and  rude  manners  made  no 
amends  to  those  who  were  attached  to  his  train  ;  and  that,  by  fol- 
lowing this  plan  of  life,  he  would  end  by  ruining  his  health  and 
making  himself  detested.  The  dauphin  received  this  lecture  with 
gentleness  and  submission,  confessed  that  he  was  wrong,  promised 
to  amend,  and  formally  begged  her  pardon.  This  circumstance  is 
certainly  very  remarkable,  and  the  more  so  because  the  next  day 
people  observed  that  he  paid  the  dauphiness  much  more  attention, 
and  behaved  toward  her  with  a  much  more  lively  affection  than 
usual."* 

We  do  not,  however,  find  in  reality  that  the  severity  of  her  ad- 

*  Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa,  dated  November  17th,  1770,  Arneth,  i.,  p.  94. 


THE  DAUPHIN'S  ADMIRATION  OF  HIS  WIFE.  55 

monitions  produced  any  permanent  diminution  of  his  fondness 
for  hunting  and  shooting ;  but  the  gentleness  of  her  general  man- 
ners, and  the  delight  which  he  saw  that  all  around  her  took  in 
her  graciousness,  so  far  excited  his  admiration  that  he  began  to 
follow  her  example.  He  said  that  "  she  had  such  native  grace 
that  every  thing  which  she  did  succeeded  to  perfection ;  that  it 
must  be  admitted  that  she  was  charming."  And  before  the  end 
of  the  winter  he  had  come  to  take  an  active  part  both  in  her  Mon- 
day balls,  and  in  those  which  her  ladies  occasionally  gave  in  her 
honor ;  "  dancing  himself  the  whole  of  the  evening,  and  convers- 
ing with  all  the  company  with  an  air  of  cheerfulness  and  good- 
nature of  which  no  one  before  had  ever  thought  him  capable."* 
The  happy  change  in  his  demeanor  was  universally  attributed  to 
the  dauphiness;  and,  as  the  character  of  their  future  king  was 
naturally  watched  with  anxiety  as  a  matter  of  the  highest  im- 
portance, it  greatly  increased  the  attachment  of  all  who  had  the 
welfare  of  the  nation  at  heart  to  the  princess,  whose  general  ex- 
ample had  produced  so  beneficial  an  effect. 

*  Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa,  dated  February  25th,  17Y1,  Arneth,  i.,  p.  134. 


56  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Mercy's  Correspondence  with  the  Empress. — Distress  and  Discontent  pervade 
France.  —  Goldsmith  predicts  a  Revolution.  —  Apathy  of  the  King.  —  The 
Aunts  mislead  Marie  Antoinette. — Maria  Teresa  hears  that  the  Dauphiness 
neglects  her  German  Visitors. — Marriage  of  the  Count  de  Provence. — Grow- 
ing Preference  of  Louis  XV.  for  the  Dauphiness. — The  Dauphiness  applies 
herself  to  Study. — Marie  Antoinette  becomes  a  Horsewoman. — Her  Kind- 
ness to  all  beneath  her. — Cabals  of  the  Adherents  of  the  Mistress. — The 
Royal  Family  become  united.  —  Concerts  in  the  Apartments  of  the  Dau- 
phiness. 

MARIE  ANTOINETTE  was  not  a  very  zealous  or  copious  letter- 
writer.  Her  only  correspondent  in  her  earlier  years  was  her  moth- 
er, and  even  to  her  her  letters  are  less  effusive  and  less  full  of  de- 
tails than  might  have  been  expected,  one  reason  for  their  brevity 
arising  out  of  the  intrigues  of  the  court,  since  she  had  cause  to 
believe  herself  so  watched  and  spied  upon  that  her  very  desk  was 
not  safe ;  and,  consequently,  she  never  ventured  to  begin  a  letter 
to  the  empress  before  the  morning  on  which  it  was  to  be  sent, 
lest  it  should  be  read  by  those  for  whose  eyes  it  was  not  intend- 
ed. For  our  knowledge,  therefore,  of  her  acts  and  feelings  at  this 
period  of  her  life,  we  still  have  to  rely  principally  on  Mercy's  cor- 
respondence, which  is,  however,  a  sufficiently  trustworthy  guide, 
so  accurate  was  his  information,  and  so  entire  the  frankness  with 
which  she  opened  herself  to  him  on  all  occasions  and  on  all  sub- 
jects. 

The  spring  of  1771  opened  very  unfavorably  for  the  new  ad- 
ministration ;  omens  of  impending  dangers  were  to  be  seen  on  all 
sides.  Ten  or  twelve  years  before,  Goldsmith,  whose  occasional 
silliness  of  manner  prevented  him  from  always  obtaining  the  at- 
tention to  which  his  sagacity  entitled  him,  had  named  the  grow- 
ing audacity  of  the  French  parliaments  as  not  only  an  indication 
of  the  approach  of  great  changes  in  that  country,  but  as  likely 
also  to  be  their  moving  cause.*  And  they  had  recently  shown 

*  See  the  "  Citizen  of  the  World,"  Letter  55.  Reference  has  often  been 
made  to  Lord  Chesterfield's  prediction  of  the  French  Revolution.  But  I  am 
not  aware  that  any  one  has  remarked  on  the  equally  acute  foresight  of  Gold- 
smith. 


DISTRESS  AND  DISCONTENT.  57 

such  determined  resistance  to  the  royal  authority,  that,  though  in 
the  most  conspicuous  instance  of  it,  their  assertion  of  their  right 
to  pronounce  an  independent  judgment  on  the  charges  brought 
against  the  Due  d'Aiguillon,  they  were  unquestionably  in  the 
right;  and  though  their  pretensions  were  supported  by  almost 
the  whole  body  of  the  princes  of  the  blood,  some  of  whom  were 
immediately  banished  for  their  contumacy,  Louis  had  been  per- 
suaded to  abolish  them  altogether.  And  Marie  Antoinette, 
though  she  carefully  avoided  mixing  herself  up  with  politics,  was, 
as  she  reported  to  her  mother,*  astonished  beyond  measure  at 
their  conduct,  which  she  looked  upon  as  arising  out  of  the  gross- 
est disloyalty,  and  which  certainly  indicated  the  existence  of  a 
feeling  very  dangerous  to  the  maintenance  of  the  royal  authority 
on  the  part  of  those  veiy  men  who  were  most  bound  to  uphold 
it.  There  was  also  great  and  general  distress.  For  a  moment  in 
the  autumn  it  had  been  relieved  by  a  fall  in  the  price  of  bread, 
which  the  unreasoning  gratitude  of  the  populace  had  attributed  to 
the  benevolence  of  the  dauphiness ;  but  the  severity  of  the  winter 
had  brought  it  back  with  aggravated  intensity  till  it  reached  even 
to  the  palace,  and  compelled  a  curtailment  of  some  of  the  festivi- 
ties with  which  it  had  been  intended  to  celebrate  the  marriage  of 
the  Count  de  Provence,  which  was  fixed  for  the  approaching  May. 
Distress  is  the  sure  parent  of  discontent,  unless  the  people  have 
a  very  complete  confidence  in  their  government.  And  this  was 
so  far  from  being  the  case  in  France  at  this  time,  that  the  dis- 
trust of  and  contempt  for  those  in  the  highest  places  increased 
daily  more  and  more.  The  influence  which  Madame  du  Barri  ex- 
erted over  the  king  became  more  rooted  as  he  became  more  used 
to  submit  to  it,  and  more  notorious  as  he  grew  more  shameless  in 
his  avowal  of  it.  She  felt  her  power,  and  her  intrigues  became 
in  the  same  proportion  more  busy  and  more  diversified  in  their 
objects.  In  the  vigorous  description  of  Mercy,  Versailles  was 
wholly  occupied  by  treachery,  hatred,  and  vengeance ;  not  one  feel- 
ing of  honesty  or  decency  remained ;  while  the  people,  ever  quick- 
witted to  perceive  the  vices  of  their  rulers,  especially  when  they 
are  indulged  at  their  expense,  revenged  themselves  by  bitter  and 
seditious  language,  and  by  satires  and  pasquinades  in  which  nei- 
ther respect  nor  mercy  was  shown  even  to  the  sacred  person  of  the 
sovereign  himself.  He  was  callous  to  all  marks  of  contempt  dis- 

*  Letter  of  April  16th,  1771,  Arneth,  i.,  p.  148. 


58  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

played  for  himself;  but  was,  or  was  induced  to  profess  himself, 
deeply  annoyed  at  the  conduct  of  the  dauphin,  who  showed  a 
fixed  aversion  for  the  mistress,  which,  however,  his  grandfather 
did  not  regard  as  dictated  by  his  own  feelings.  Louis  rather  be- 
lieved that  it  was  fostered  by  Marie  Antoinette,  and  that  she,  in 
encouraging  her  husband,  was  but  following  the  advice  of  her 
aunts ;  and  he  threatened  to  remonstrate  with  the  dauphiness  on 
the  subject,  though,  as  Mercy  correctly  divined,  he  could  not 
nerve  himself  to  the  necessary  resolution. 

It  was  true  that  Marie  Antoinette  did  often  allow  herself  to  be 
far  too  much  influenced  by  those  princesses.  She  confessed  to 
Mercy  that  she  was  afraid  to  displease  or  thwart  them ;  a  feeling 
which  he  regarded  as  the  more  unfortunate  because,  when  she  was 
not  actuated  by  that  consideration,  her  own  judgment  and  her 
own  impulses  would  always  guide  her  aright ;  and  because,  too, 
the  elder  princesses  were  the  most  unsafe  of  all  advisers.  They 
were  notoriously  jealous  of  one  another,  and  each  at  times  tried 
to  inspire  her  niece  with  her  feelings  toward  the  other  two ;  and 
they  often,  without  meaning  it,  played  into  the  hands  of  the  mis- 
tress's cabal,  intriguing  for  selfish  objects  of  their  own  with  as 
much  malice  and  meanness  as  could  be  practiced  by  Madame  du 
Barri  herself. 

Still,  in  spite  of  these  drawbacks,  it  was  almost  inevitable  that 
they  should  have  great  influence  over  their  niece.  Their  experi- 
ence might  well  be  presumed  by  her  to  have  given  them  a  cor- 
rect insight  into  the  ways  of  the  court,  and  the  best  mode  of  be- 
having to  their  own  father;  and  she,  a  foreigner  and  almost  a 
child,  was  not  only  in  need  of  counsel  and  guidance,  but  had  no 
one  else  of  her  own  sex  to  whom  she  could  so  naturally  look  for 
information  or  advice.  They  were,  as  she  explained  to  Mercy, 
her  only  society ;  and,  though  she  was  too  clear-sighted  not  to  see 
their  faults,  and  not  at  times  to  be  aware  that  she  was  suffering 
from  their  perverseness,  she,  like  other  people,  was  often  com- 
pelled to  tolerate  what  she  could  not  mend,  and  to  shut  her  eyes 
to  disagreeable  qualities  when  forced  to  live  on  terms  of  intimacy 
with  the  possessors. 

On  this  point  Maria  Teresa  was,  perhaps,  hardly  inclined  to 
make  sufficient  allowance  for  her  difficulties,  and  insisted  over  and 
over  again  on  the  mischief  which  would  arise  to  her  from  the 
habit  of  surrendering  her  judgment  to  these  princesses.  She  told 
her  that,  though  far  from  being  devoid  of  virtues  and  real  merit, 


ADVICE  OF  MART  A   TERESA.  59 

''they  had  never  succeeded  in  making  themselves  loved  or  es- 
teemed by  either  their  father  or  the  public;"*  and  she  added 
other  admonitions  which,  as  they  were  avowedly  suggested  by  re- 
ports that  had  reached  her,  may  be  taken  as  indicating  some  er- 
rors into  which  her  daughter's  lightness  of  heart  had  occasionally 
betrayed  her.  She  entreated  her  not  to  show  an  exclusive  pref- 
erence for  the  more  youthful  portion  of  her  society,  to  the  neglect 
of  those  who  were  older,  and  commonly  of  higher  consideration ; 
never  to  laugh  at  people  or  turn  them  into  ridicule — no  habit  could 
be  more  injurious  to  herself,  and  indulgence  in  it  would  give  rea- 
son to  doubt  her  good-nature ;  it  might  gain  her  the  applause  of 
a  few  young  people,  but  it  would  alienate  a  much  greater  num- 
ber, and  those  the  people  of  the  most  real  weight  and  respecta- 
bility. "  This  is  not,"  said  the  experienced  and  wise  empress,  "  a 
trivial  matter  in  a  princess.  We  live  on  the  stage  of  the  great 
world,  and  it  is  above  all  things  essential  that  people  should  en- 
tertain a  high  idea  of  us.  If  you  will  only  not  allow  others  to 
lead  you  astray,  you  are  sure  of  success ;  a  kind  Providence  has 
endowed  you  so  liberally  with  beauty,  and  with  so  many  charms, 
that  all  hearts  are  yours  if  you  are  but  prudent."f 

The  empress  would  have  had  her  exhibit  this  prudence  in  her 
conduct  also  to  Madame  du  Barri.  She  pressed  upon  her  that 
she  was  justified  in  appearing  ignorant  of  that  lady's  real  position 
and  character ;  that  she  need  only  be  aware  that  she  was  received 
at  court,  and  that  respect  for  the  king  should  prevent  her  from 
suspecting  him  of  countenancing  undeserving  people. 

One  other  detail  in  the  accounts  of  Marie  Antoinette's  conduct, 
which  from  time  to  time  reached  Vienna,  had  also  vexed  the  em- 
press, and  it  should  be  kept  in  mind  by  any  one  who  would  fairly 
estimate  the  truth  of  the  charge  brought  against  her,  and  urged 
with  such  rancor  after  she  had  become  queen — of  postponing  the 
interests  of  France  to  those  of  her  native  land,  of  being  Austrian 
at  heart.  Maria  Teresa  had  heard,  on  the  contrary,  that  she  had 
given  those  Austrians  who  had  presented  themselves  at  Versailles 
but  a  cold  reception,  and  she  did  not  attempt  to  conceal  her  dis- 
content. With  a  natural  and  becoming  pride  in  and  jealousy  for 
her  own  loyal  and  devoted  subjects,  she  entreated  her  daughter 
never  to  feel  ashamed  of  them,  or  ashamed  of  being  German  her- 

*  Arneth,i.,p.  186. 

f  Maria  Teresa  to  Marie  Antoinette,  July  9th,  and  August  17th,  Arneth,  i.,  p. 
196. 


60  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

self,  even  if,  comparatively  speaking,  the  name  should  imply  some 
deficiency  in  polish.  "  The  French  themselves  would  esteem  her 
more  if  they  saw  in  her  something  of  German  solidity  and  frank- 
ness."* 

The  daughter  answered  the  mother  with  some  adroitness.  She 
took  no  notice  of  the  advice  about  her  behavior  to  Madame  du 
Barri.  It  was  the  one  topic  on  which  her  own  feelings  of  propri- 
ety, as  well  as  those  of  the  dauphin,  coincided  with  the  sugges- 
tions of  the  aunts,  and  she  did  not  desire  to  vex  or  provoke  the 
empress  by  a  prolonged  discussion  of  the  question ;  but  the  charge 
of  coldness  to  her  own  countrymen  she  denied  earnestly.  "  She 
should  always  glory  in  being  a  German.  Some  of  those  nobles 
whom  the  empress  had  expressly  named  she  had  treated  with 
careful  distinction,  and  had  even  danced  with  them,  though  they 
were  not  men  of  the  very  highest  character.  She  well  knew  that 
the  Germans  had  many  good  qualities  which  she  could  wish  that 
the  French  shared  with  them ;"  and  she  promised  that,  whenever 
any  of  her  mother's  subjects  of  such  standing  and  merit  as  to  be 
worthy  of  her  attention  came  to  the  court,  they  should  have  no 
cause  to  complain  of  her  reception  of  them.  Her  language  on 
the  subject  is  so  measured  and  careful  as  to  lead  us  almost  inevi- 
tably to  the  inference  that  the  reports  which  had  excited  such 
dissatisfaction  at  Vienna  were  not  without  foundation,  but  that 
the  French  gayety,  even  if  often  descending  to  frivolity,  was  more 
to  her  taste  than  the  German  solidity  which  her  mother  so  highly 
esteemed,  and  that  she  had  been  at  no  great  pains  to  hide  a  pref- 
erence which  must  naturally  be  acceptable  to  those  among  whom 
her  future  life  was  to  be  spent. 

In  the  middle  of  May,  the  Count  de  Provence  was  married  to 
the  Princess  Josephine  Louise  of  Savoy,  and  the  court  went  to 
Fontainebleau  to  receive  the  bride.  The  necessity  for  leaving 
Madame  du  Barri  behind  threw  the  king  more  into  the  company 
of  the  dauphiness  than  he  had  been  on  any  previous  occasion, 
and  her  unaffected  graces  seemed  for  the  moment  to  have  made  a 
complete  conquest  of  him.  He  came  in  his  dressing-gown  to  her 
apartments  for  breakfast,  and  spent  a  great  portion  of  the  day 
there.  The  courtiers  again  began  to  speculate  on  her  breaking 

*  "Ne  soyez  pas  honteusc  d'etre  allemande  jusqu'aux  gaucheries Le 

Fran^ais  vous  estimera  plus  et  fera  plus  de  compte  sur  vous  s'il  vous  trouve 
la  solidite  et  la  franchise  allemande."  —  Maria  Teresa  to  Marie  Antoinette, 
May  8th,  1771,  Arneth,  i.,  p.  159. 


THE  KING'S  PREFERENCE  FOR  THE  DAUPHINESS.        61 

down  the  ascendency  of  the  favorite,  remarking  that,  though 
Louis  was  careful  to  pay  his  new  relative  the  honors  which  were 
her  due  as  a  stranger  and  a  bride,  he  returned  as  speedily  as  he 
could  with  decency  to  the  dauphiness  as  if  for  relief ;  and  that, 
though  she  herself  took  care  to  put  her  new  sister-in-law  forward  on 
all  occasions,  and  treated  her  with  the  most  marked  cordiality  and 
affection,  every  one  else  made  the  dauphiness  the  principal  object 
of  homage  even  in  the  festivities  which  were  celebrated  in  honor 
of  the  countess.  Indeed,  it  was  evident  from  the  very  first  that 
any  attempt  of  the  mistress's  cabal  to  establish  a  rivalry  between 
the  two  princesses  must  be  out  of  the  question.  The  Countess 
de  Provence  had  no  beauty,  nor  accomplishments,  nor  gracious- 
ness.  Horace  Walpole,  who  was  meditating  a  visit  to  Paris, 
where  he  had  some  diligent  correspondents,  was  told  that  he 
would  lose  his  senses  when  he  saw  the  dauphiness,  but  would  be 
disenchanted  by  her  sister ;  and  the  saying,  though  that  of  a  blind 
old  lady,  expressed  the  opinion  of  all  Frenchmen  who  could  see.* 

Indeed,  so  obvious  was  the  king's  partiality  for  her  that  even 
Madame  du  Barri  more  than  once  sought  to  propitiate  her  by 
speaking  in  praise  of  her  to  Mercy,  and  professing  an  eager  desire 
to  aid  in  procuring  the  gratification  of  any  of  her  wishes.  But 
he  was  too  shrewd  and  too  well-informed  to  place  the  least  confi- 
dence in  her  sincerity,  though  he  did  not  fear  half  as  much  harm 
to  his  pupil  from  her  enmity  as  from  the  pretended  affection  of 
the  aunts,  who,  from  a  mixture  of  folly  and  treachery,  were  un- 
wearied in  their  attempts  to  keep  her  at  a  distance  from  the  king, 
by  inspiring  her  with  a  fear  of  him,  for  which  his  disposition, 
which  had  as  much  good-nature  in  it  as  was  compatible  with 
weakness,  gave  no  ground  whatever.  Indeed,  the  mischief  they 
did  was  not  confined  to  their  influence  over  her,  if  Mercy  was  cor- 
rect in  his  belief  that  it  was  their  disagreeable  tempers  and  man- 
ners which  at  this  time,  and  for  the  remainder  of  the  reign,  pre- 
vented Louis  from  associating  more  with  his  family,  which,  had 
all  been  like  the  dauphiness,  he  would  have  preferred  to  do. 

It  would  probably  have  been  in  vain  that  Mercy  remonstrated 
against  her  submitting  as  she  did  to  the  aunts,  had  he  not  been 
at  all  times  able  to  secure  the  co-operation  of  the  empress,  who 
placed  the  most  implicit  confidence  in  his  judgment  in  all  matters 
relating  to  the  French  court,  and  remonstrated  with  her  daughter 

»   Walpole's  letter  to  Sir  H.  Mann,  June  8tb,  1771,  v.,  p.  301. 


62  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

energetically  on  the  want  of  proper  self-respect  which  was  im- 
plied in  her  surrendering  her  own  judgment  to  that  of  the  aunts', 
as  if  she  were  a  slave  or  a  child.  And  Mafic  Antoinette  replied 
to  her  mother  in  a  tone  of  such  mingled  submissiveness  and  affec- 
tion as  showed  how  sincere  was  her  desire  to  remove  every  shade 
of  annoyance  from  the  empress's  mind ;  and  which  may,  perhaps, 
lead  to  a  suspicion  that  even  her  subservience  to  the  aunts  pro- 
ceeded in  a  great  degree  from  her  anxiety  to  win  the  good-will 
of  every  one,  and  from  the  kindness  which  could  not  endure  to 
thwart  those  with  whom  she  was  much  associated ;  though  at  the 
same  time  she  complained  to  the  embassador  that  her  mother 
wrote  without  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  difficulties  with  which 
she  was  surrounded.  But  she  had  too  deep  an  affection  and  rev- 
erence for  her  mother  to  allow  her  words  to  fall  to  the  ground; 
and  gradually  Mercy  began  to  see  a  difference  in  her  conduct, 
and  a  greater  inclination  to  assert  her  own  independence,  which 
was  the  feeling  that  above  all  others  he  thought  most  desirable  to 
foster  in  her. 

Another  topic  which  we  find  constantly  urged  in  the  empress's 
letters  would  seem  strangely  inconsistent  with  Marie  Antoinette's 
position,  if  we  did  not  remember  how  very  young  she  still  was. 
For  her  mother  writes  to  her  in  many  respects  as  if  she  were  still 
at  school,  and  continually  inculcates  on  her  the  necessity  of  prof- 
iting by  De  Vermond's  instructions,  and  applying  herself  to  a 
course  of  solid  reading  in  theology  and  history.  And  here, 
though  her  natural  appetite  for  amusement  interfered  with  her 
studies  somewhat  more  than  the  empress,  prompted  by  Mercy, 
was  willing  to  make  allowance  for,  she  profited  much  more  will- 
ingly by  her  mother's  advice,  having  indeed  a  natural  inclination 
for  the  works  of  history  and  biography,  and  a  decided  distaste  for 
novels  and  romances.  She  could  not  have  had  a  better  guide  in 
such  matters  than  De  Vermond,  who  was  a  man  of  extensive  in- 
formation and  of  a  very  correct  taste;  and  under  his  guidance 
and  with  his  assistance  she  studied  Sully's  memoirs,  Madame  de 
Sevigne's  letters,  and  any  other  books  which  he  recommended  to 
her,  and  which  gave  her  an  idea  of  the  past  history  of  the  country 
as  well  as  the  masterpieces  of  the  great  French  dramatists.* 

The  latter  part  of  the  year  1771  was  marked  by  no  very  strik- 
ing occurrences.  Marie  Antoinette  had  carried  her  point,  and  had 

*  Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa,  January  23d,  1772,  Arneth,  i.,  p.  265. 


MARIE  ANTOINETTE'S  STUDIES.  63 

begun  to  ride  on  horseback  without  either  her  figure  or  her  com- 
plexion suffering  from  the  exercise.  On  the  contrary,  she  was  ad- 
mitted to  have  improved  in  beauty.  She  sent  her  measure  to  Vien- 
na, to  show  Maria  Teresa  how  much  she  had  grown,  adding  that  her 
husband  had  grown  as  much,  and  had  become  stronger  and  more 
healthy -looking,  and  that  she  had  made  use  of  her  saddle-horses  to 
accompany  him  in  his  hunting  and  shooting  excursions.  Like  a 
true  wife,  she  boasted  to  her  mother  of  his  skill  as  a  shot :  the 
very  day  that  she  wrote  he  had  killed  forty  head  of  game.  (She 
did  not  mention  that  a  French  sportsman's  bag  was  not  confined 
to  the  larger  game,  but  that  thrushes,  blackbirds,  and  even  red- 
breasts, were  admitted  to  swell  the  list.)  And  the  increased 
facilities  for  companionship  with  him  that  her  riding  afforded 
increased  his  tenderness  for  her,  so  that  she  was  happier  than 
ever.  Except  that  as  yet  she  saw  no  prospect  of  presenting  the 
empress  with  a  grandchild,  she  had  hardly  a  wish  ungratified. 

Her  taste  for  open-air  exercise  of  this  kind  added  also  to  the 
attachment  felt  for  her  by  the  lower  classes,  from  the  opportuni- 
ties which  arose  out  of  it  for  showing  her  unvarying  and  consid- 
erate kindness.  The  contrast  which  her  conduct  afforded  to  that 
of  previous  princes,  and  indeed  to  that  of  all  the  present  race  ex- 
cept her  husband,  caused  her  actions  of  this  sort  to  be  estimated 
rather  above  their  real  importance.  But  how  great  was  the  im- 
pression which  they  did  make  on  those  who  witnessed  them  may 
be  seen  in  the  unanimity  with  which  the  chroniclers  of  the  time 
record  her  forbidding  her  postilions  to  drive  over  a  field  of  corn 
which  lay  between  her  and  the  stag,  because  she  would  rather 
miss  the  sight  of  the  chase  than  injure  the  farmer;  and  relate 
how,  on  one  occasion,  she  gave  up  riding  for  a  week  or  two,  and 
sent  her  horses  back  from  Compiegne  to  Versailles,  because  the 
wife  of  her  head-groom  was  on  the  point  of  her  confinement,  and 
she  wished  her  to  have  her  husband  near  her  at  such  a  moment ; 
and  on  another,  when  the  horse  of  one  of  her  attendants  kicked 
her,  and  inflicted  a  severe  bruise  on  her  foot,  she  abstained  from 
mentioning  the  hurt,  lest  it  should  bring  the  rider  into  disgrace 
by  being  attributed  to  his  awkward  management. 

Not  that  the  intrigues  of  the  mistress  and  her  adherents  were 
at  all  diminished.  They  were  even  more  active  than  ever  since 
the  marriage  of  the  Count  de  Provence,  who,  in  an  underhanded 
way,  instigated  his  wife  to  show  countenance  to  Madame  du  Barri, 
and  who  allowed,  if  he  did  not  encourage,  the  mistress  and  her 


04  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

friends  to  speak  slightingly  of  the  dauphiness  in  his  presence. 
But,  as  Marie  Antoinette  felt  firmer  in  her  own  position,  she 
could  afford  to  disregard  the  malice  of  these  caballers  more  than 
she  had  felt  that  she  could  do  at  first,  and  even  to  defy  them.  On 
one  occasion  that  the  Count  de  Provence  was  imprudent  enough 
to  discuss  some  of  his  schemes  with  the  door  open  while  she  was 
in  the  next  room,  she  told  him  frankly  that  she  had  heard  all  that 
he  said,  and  reproached  him  for  his  duplicity ;  and  the  dauphin 
coming  in  at  the  moment,  she  flew  to  him,  throwing  her  arms 
round  his  neck,  and  telling  him  how  she  appreciated  his  honesty 
and  candor,  and  how  the  more  she  compared  him  with  the  others, 
the  more  she  saw  his  superiority.  Indeed,  she  soon  began  to  find 
that  the  Countess  de  Provence  was  as  little  to  be  trusted  as  her 
husband;  and  the  only  member  of  the  family  whom  she  really 
liked,  or  of  whom  she  had  at  all  a  favorable  opinion,  was  the 
Count  d'Artois,  who,  though  not  yet  out  of  the  school -room, 
"  showed,"  as  she  told  her  mother,  "  sentiments  of  honesty  which 
he  could  never  have  learned  of  his  governor."* 

Her  indefatigable  guardian,  Mercy,  reported  to  the  empress  that 
she  improved  every  day.  He  had  learned  to  conceive  a  very  high 
idea  of  her  abilities ;  and  he  dilated  with  especial  satisfaction  on 
the  powers  of  conversation  which  she  was  developing ;  on  her  wit 
and  readiness  in  repartee ;  on  her  originality,  as  well  as  facility 
of  expression ;  and  on  her  perfect  possession  of  the  royal  art  of 
speaking  to  a  whole  company  with  such  notice  of  each  member 
of  it,  that  each  thought  himself  the  person  to  whom  her  remarks 
were  principally  addressed.  She  possessed  another  accomplish- 
ment, also,  of  great  value  to  princes — a  tenacious  recollection  of 
faces  and  names.  And  she  had  made  herself  acquainted  with  the 
history  of  all  the  chief  nobles,  so  as  to  be  able  to  make  graceful 
allusions  to  facts  in  their  family  annals  of  which  they  were  proud, 
and,  what  was  perhaps  even  more  important,  to  avoid  unpleasant 
or  dangerous  topics.  The  king  himself  was  not  insensible  to  the 
increase  of  attraction  which  her  charms,  both  of  person  and  man- 
ner, conferred  on  the  royal  palace.  He  was  perfectly  satisfied 
with  the  civility  of  her  behavior  to  Madame  du  Barri,  who  ad- 
mitted that  she  had  nothing  to  complain  of.  And  the  only  point 
in  which  even  Mercy,  the  most  critical  of  judges,  saw  any  room 

*  The  Due  de  la  Vauguyon,  who,  after  the  dauphin's  marriage,  still  re- 
tained his  post  with  his  younger  brother. 


HER  TASTE  FOB  MUSIC.  65 

for  alteration  in  her  conduct  was  a  certain  remissness  in  bestow- 
ing her  notice  on  men  of  real  eminence,  and  on  foreign  visitors  if 
they  were  not  of  the  very  highest  rank ;  the  remark  as  to  the  lat- 
ter class  being  perhaps  dictated  by  a  somewhat  excessive  natural 
susceptibility,  and  by  a  laudable  desire  that  any  Germans  who  re- 
turned from  France  to  their  own  country  should  sing  her  praises 
in  her  native  land. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  strongest  proofs  of  the  regard  in  which,  at 
this  time,  she  was  held  by  all  parties  in  the  court  is  found  in  the 
circumstance  that  the  Count  de  Provence  himself  very  soon  found 
it  impossible  to  continue  his  countenance  to  the  intrigues  against 
her  which  he  had  previously  favored.  He  preferred  ingratiating 
himself  and  the  countess  with  her.  Marie  Antoinette  was  al- 
ways placable,  and  from  the  first  had  been  eager,  as  the  head  of 
the  family,  to  place  her  sister-in-law  at  her  ease;  so  that  when 
the  count  evinced  his  desire  to  stand  on  a  friendly  footing  with 
her,  she  showed  every  disposition  to  meet  his  wishes,  and  the 
spring  and  summer  of  1772  exhibited  to  the  courtiers,  who  were 
little  accustomed  to  such  scenes,  a  happy  example  of  an  intimate 
family  union.  Marie  Antoinette  had  always  been  fond  of  music, 
and,  as  we  have  seen  before,  ever  since  her  arrival  in  France,  had 
devoted  fixed  hours  to  her  music-master.  And  now,  on  almost 
every  evening  which  was  not  otherwise  preoccupied,  she  gave  lit- 
tle concerts  in  her  apartments  to  the  royal  family,  their  principal 
attendants,  and  a  few  of  the  chief  nobles  of  the  court ;  being  her- 
self occasionally  one  of  the  performers,  and  maintaining  her  char- 
acter as  a  hostess  by  a  combined  affability  and  dignity  which 
made  all  her  guests  pleased  with  themselves  as  with  her,  and  set 
all  imitation  pnd  all  detraction  alike  at  defiance. 

5 


66  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Marie  Antoinette  wishes  to  see  Paris. — Intrigues  of  Madame  Adelaide. — Char- 
acters of  the  Dauphin  and  the  Count  de  Provence. — Grand  Review  at  Fon- 
tainebleau. — Marie  Antoinette  in  the  Hunting  Field. — Letter  from  her  to 
the  Empress. — Mischievous  Influence  of  the  Dauphin's  Aunts  on  her  Char- 
acter.— Letter  of  Marie  Antoinette  to  the  Empress. — Her  Affection  for  her 
Old  Home. — The  Princes  are  recalled  from  Exile. — Lord  Stormont. — Great 
Fire  at  the  Hotel-Dieu. — Liberality  and  Charity  of  Marie  Antoinette. — She 
goes  to  the  Bal  d'Opera. — Her  Feelings  about  the  Partition  of  Poland. — 
The  King  discusses  Politics  with  her,  and  thinks  highly  of  her  Ability. 

IT  was  a  curious  proof  of  the  mischievousness  as  well  as  of  the 
extent  of  the  influence  which  Madame  Adelaide  and  her  sister 
were  able  to  exert  over  the  indolence  and  apathy  of  their  father, 
that  when  Marie  Antoinette  had  for  more  than  two  years  been 
married  and  living  within  twelve  miles  of  Paris,  she  had  never 
yet  seen  it  by  daylight,  although  the  universal  and  natural  expec- 
tation of  the  citizens  had  been  that  the  royal  pair  would  pay 
the  city  a  state  visit  immediately  after  their  marriage.  Her  own 
wishes  had  not  been  consulted  in  the  matter ;  for  she  was  natu- 
rally anxious  to  see  the  beautiful  city  of  which  she  had  heard  so 
much ;  and  the  delay  which  had  taken  place  was  equally  at  vari- 
ance with  Madame  de  Noailles'  notions  of  propriety.  But  when 
the  countess  suggested  a  plan  for  visiting  the  capital  incognito, 
proposing  that  the  dauphiness  should  drive  as  far  as  the  entrance 
to  the  suburbs,  and  then,  having  sent  on  her  saddle-horses,  should 
ride  along  the  boulevards,  Madame  Adelaide,  professing  a  desire 
to  join  the  party,  raised  so  many  difficulties  on  the  subject  of  the 
retinue  which  was  to  follow,  and  was  so  successful  in  creating 
jealousies  between  her  own  ladies  and  those  in  attendance  on 
Marie  Antoinette,  that  Madame  de  Noailles  was  forced  to  recom- 
mend the  abandonment  of  the  project.  Mercy  was  far  more  an- 
noyed than  his  young  mistress ;  he  saw  that  the  secret  object  of 
Madame  Adelaide  was  to  throw  as  many  hinderances  as  possible 
in  the  way  of  the  dauphiness  winning  popularity  by  appearing  in 


THE  DAUPHIN  AND  THE  COUNT  DE  PROVENCE.          67 

public,  while  he  also  correctly  judged  that  it  would  be  consistent 
both  with  propriety  and  with  her  interest,  as  the  future  queen  ol 
the  country,  rather  to  seek  and  even  make  opportunities  for  en- 
abling the  people  to  become  acquainted  with  her.  But  to  Marie- 
Antoinette  any  disappointment  of  that  kind  was  a  very  trifling 
matter.  She  had  vexations  which,  as  she  told  the  embassador, 
she  could  not  explain  even  to  him;  and  they  kept  alive  in  her 
a  feeling  of  homesickness  which,  in  all  persons  of  amiable  and 
affectionate  disposition,  must  require  some  time  to  subdue.  ]£ven 
when  her  brother,  the  Archduke  Ferdinand,  had  quit  Vienna  in 
the  preceding  autumn  to  enter  on  the  honorable  post  of  Governor 
of  Lombardy,  she  had  not  congratulated,  but  condoled  with  him, 
"  feeling  by  her  own  experience  how  much  it  co^ts  to  be  separated 
from  one's  family."  And  what  she  had  found  in  her  own  home 
did  not  as  yet  make  up  to  her  for  all  she  had  left  behind.  Evei 
her  husband,  though  uniformly  kind  in  language  and  behavior, 
was  of  a  singularly  cold  and  undemonstrative  disposition;  and 
it  almost  seemed  as  if  the  gayety  which  he  exhibited  at  her  balls 
were  an  effort  so  foreign  to  his  nature  that  he  indemnified  him 
self  by  unpardonable  boorishness  on  other  occasions.  The  Count 
de  Provence  had  but  little  more  polish,  and  a  far  worse  temper. 
Squabbles  often  took  place  between  the  two  brothers.  Though 
both  married  men,  they  were  still  in  age  only  boys ;  and  on  more 
than  one  occasion  they  proceeded  to  acts  of  personal  violence  to 
each  other  in  her  presence.  Luckily  no  one  else  was  by,  and  she 
was  able  to  pacify  and  reconcile  them ;  but  she  could  hardly 
avoid  feeling  ashamed  of  having  been  called  on  to  exert  herself  in 
such  a  cause,  or  contrasting  the  undignified  boisterousness  (to  give 
it  no  worse  name)  of  such  scenes  with  the  decorous  self-respect 
which,  with  all  their  simplicity  of  character,  had  always  governed 
the  conduct  of  her  own  relations. 

Not  but  that,  in  the  opinion  of  Mercy,*  the  dauphin  was  en- 
dowed by  nature  with  a  more  than  ordinary  share  of  good  quali 
ties.  His  faults  were  only  such  as  proceeded  from  an  excessive- 
ly bad  education.  He  had  many  most  essential  virtues.  He  was 
a  young  man  of  perfect  integrity  and  straightforwardness ;  he  was 
desirous  to  hear  the  truth ;  and  it  was  never  necessary  to  beat 
about  the  bush,  or  to  have  recourse  to  roundabout  ways  of  bring- 
ing it  before  him.  On  the  contrary,  to  speak  to  him  with  perfect 

*  Mercy's  letter  to  the  empress,  August  14th,  1772,  Arneth,  i.,  p.  335. 


68  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

frankness  was  the  surest  way  both  to  win  his  esteem  and  to  con- 
vince his  reason.  On  one  or  two  occasions  in  which  he  had  con- 
sulted the  embassador,  Mercy  had  expressed  his  opinions  without 
the  least  reserve,  and  had  perceived  that  the  young  prince  had 
liked  him  better  for  his  candor. 

The  king  still  kept  up  the  habit  of  spending  the  greater  part 
of  the  autumn  at  Compiegne  and  Fontainebleau,  visits  which  Ma- 
rie Antoinette  welcomed  as  a  holiday  from  the  etiquette  of  Ver- 
sailles. She  wrote  word  to  her  mother  that  she  was  growing  very 
fast,  and  taking  asses'  milk  to  keep  up  her  strength ;  that  that  reg- 
imen, with  constant  exercise,  was  doing  her  great  geod ;  and  that 
she  had  gained  great  praise  for  the  excellence  of  her  riding.  On 
one  occasion,  when  they  were  at  Fontainebleau,  she  especially  de- 
lighted the  officers  of  her  husband's  regiment  of  cuirassiers,  when 
the  king  reviewed  it  in  person.  The  dauphin  himself  took  the 
command  of  his  men,  and  put  them  through  their  evolutions  while 
she  rode  by  his  side;  he  then  presented  each  of  the  officers  to 
her  separately,  and  she  distributed  cockades  to  the  whole  body. 
The  first  she  gave  to  the  dauphin  himself,*  who  placed  it  in  his 
hat.  Each  officer,  as  he  received  his,  did  the  same.  And  after 
the  king  had  taken  his  departure,  she,  with  her  husband,  remained 
on  the  field  for  an  hour,  conversing  freely  with  the  soldiers,  and 
showing  the  greatest  interest  in  all  that  concerned  the  regiment. 
Throughout  the  day  the  young  prince  had  exhibited  a  knowledge 
of  the  profession,  and  a  readiness  as  well  as  an  ease  of  manner, 
which  had  surprised  all  the  spectators,  and  Mercy  had  the  satis- 
faction of  hearing  every  one  attribute  the  admirable  appearance 
which  he  had  made  on  so  important  an  occasion  (for  it  was  the 
first  time  of  his  appearing  in  such  a  position)  to  the  example  and 
hints  of  the  dauphiness. 

It  was  scarcely  less  of  a  public  appearance,  while  it  was  one  in 
which  the  king  himself  probably  took  more  interest,  when,  a  few 
days  afterward,  on  the  occasion  of  a  grand  stag-hunt  in  the  for- 
est, she  joined  in  the  chase  in  a  hunting  uniform  of  her  own  de- 
vising. The  king  was  so  delighted  that  he  scarcely  left  her  side, 
and  extolled  her  taste  in  dress,  as  well  as  her  skill  in  horseman- 
ship, to  all  whom  he  honored  with  his  conversation.  But  the 
empress  was  not  quite  so  well  pleased.  Her  disapproval  of  horse 
exercise  for  young  married  women  was  as  strong  as  ever.  She 

*  Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa,  November  14th,  1772,  Arneth,  i.,  p.  307. 


SHE  BECOMES  A  SKILLFUL  RIDER.  69 

had  also  interpreted  some  of  her  daughter's  submissive  replies  to 
her  admonitions  on  the  subject  as  a  promise  that  she  would  not 
ride,  and  she  scolded  her  severely  (no  weaker  word  can  express 
the  asperity  of  her  language)  for  neglect  of  her  engagement,  as 
well  as  for  the  risk  of  accidents  which  are  incurred  by  those  who 
follow  the  hounds,  and  some  of  which,  as  she  heard,  had  befallen 
the  dauphiness  herself.  Her  daughter's  explanation  was  as  frank 
as  it  deserved  to  be  accounted  sufficient,  while  her  letter  is  inter- 
esting also,  as  showing  her  constant  eagerness  to  exculpate  herself 
from  the  charge  of  indifference  to  her  German  countrymen,  an 
eagerness  which  proves  how  firmly  she  believed  the  notion  to  be 
fixed  in  the  empress's  mind. 

"  I  expect,  my  dear  mamma,  that  people  mpst  have  told  you 
more  about  my  rides  than  there  really  was  to  be  told.  I  will  tell 
you  the  exact  truth.  The  king  and  the  dauphin  both  like  to  see 
me  on  horseback.  I  only  say  this  because  all  the  world  perceives 
it,  and  especially  while  we  were  absent  from  Versailles  they  were 
delighted  to  see  me  in  my  riding-habit.  But,  though  I  own  it 
was  no  great  effort  for  me  to  conform  myself  to  their  desires,  I 
can  assure  you  that  I  never  once  let  myself  be  carried  away  by 
too  much  eagerness  to  keep  close  to  the  hounds ;  and  I  hope  that, 
in  spite  of  all  my  giddiness,  I  shall  always  allow  myself  to  be  re- 
strained by  the  experienced  hunters  who  constantly  accompany 
me,  and  I  shall  never  thrust  myself  into  the  crowd.  I  should  nev- 
er have  supposed  any  one  could  have  reported  to  you  as  an  acci- 
dent what  happened  to  me  at  Fontainebleau.  Every  now  and 
then  one  finds  in  the  forest  large  stepping-stones ;  and  as  we  were 
going  on  very  gently  my  horse  stumbled  on  one  covered  with 
sand,  which  he  did  not  see ;  but  I  easily  held  him  up,  and  we 

went  on Esterhazy  was  at  our  ball  yesterday.     Every  one 

was  greatly  pleased  with  his  dignified  manner  and  with  his  style 
of  dancing.  I  ought  to  have  spoken  to  him  when  he  was  pre- 
sented to  me,  and  my  silence  only  proceeded  from  embarrassment, 
as  I  did  not  know  him.  It  would  be  doing  me  great  injustice  to 
think  that  I  have  any  feeling  of  indifference  to  my  country;  I 
have  more  reason  than  any  one  to  feel,  every  day  of  my  life,  the 
value  of  the  blood  which  flows  in  my  veins,  and  it  is  only  from 
prudence  that  at  times  I  abstain  from  showing  how  proud  I  am 

of  it I  never  neglect  any  mode  of  paying  attention  to  the 

king,  and  of  anticipating  his  wishes  as  far  as  I  can.  I  hope  that 
he  is  pleased  with  me.  It  is  my  duty  to  please  him,  my  duty 


70  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

and  also  my  glory,  if  by  such  means  I  can  contribute  to  maintain 
the  alliance  of  the  two  houses "* 

The  empress  was  but  half  pacified  about  the  riding  and  hunt- 
ing. She  owned  that,  if  both  the  king  and  the  dauphin  approved 
of  it,  she  had  nothing  more  to  say,  though  she  still  blamed  the 
dauphiness  for  forgetting  a  promise  which  she  understood  to  have 
been  made  to  herself.  At  the  same  time,  no  language  could  be 
kinder  than  that  in  which  she  asked  "  whether  her  daughter  could 
believe  that  she  would  wish  to  deprive  her  of  so  innocent  a  pleas- 
ure, she  who  would  give  her  very  life  to  procure  her  one,  if  she 
were  not  apprehensive  of  mischievous  consequences ;"  her  appre- 
hensions being  solely  dictated  by  her  anxiety  to  live  to  see  her 
daughter  bear  an  heir  to  the  throne.  But  she  would  by  no  means 
admit  her  excuses  for  giving  the  Hungarian  prince  a  cold  recep- 
tion. "  How,"  she  said,  "  could  she  forget  that  her  little  Antoi- 
nette, when  not  above  twelve  or  thirteen  years  old,  knew  how  to 
receive  people  publicly,  and  say  something  polite  and  gracious  to 
every  one,  and  how  could  she  suppose  that  the  same  daughter, 
now  that  she  was  dauphiness,  could  feel  embarrassment?  Em- 
barrassment was  a  mere  chimera." 

But  the  truth  was  that  it  was  not  a  mere  chimera.  Mercy  had 
more  than  once  deplored,  as  one  among  the  mischievous  effects  of 
Madame  Adelaide's  constant  interference  and  domineering  influ- 
ence, that  it  had  bred  in  Marie  Antoinette  a  timidity  which  was 
wholly  foreign  to  her  nature.  And  indeed  it  was  hardly  possible 
for  one  still  so  young  to  be  aware  that  she  was  surrounded  by  un- 
friendly intriguers  and  spies,  and  to  preserve  that  uniform  presence 
of  mind  which  her  rank  and  position  made  so  desirable  for  her, 
and  which  was  in  truth  so  natural  to  her  that  she  at  once  recov- 
ered it  the  moment  that  her  circumstances  changed. 

And  a  probability  of  an  early  change  was  already  apparent. 
During  the  last  months  of  1772  there  was  a  general  idea  that  the 
king's  health  and  mental  faculties  were  both  giving  away ;  and  all 
the  different  parties  about  Versailles  began  to  show  their  sense  of 
her  approaching  authority.  It  was  remarked  that  both  the  min- 
isters and  the  mistress  had  become  very  guarded  in  their  language, 
and  in  their  behavior  to  her  and  her  husband.  The  Count  de 
Provence  took  a  curious  way  of  showing  his  expectation  of  a 
change,  by  delivering  her  a  long  paper  of  counsels  for  her  guid- 

*  Marie  Antoinette  to  Maria  Teresa,  December  15th,  1772,  Arneth,  i.,  p.  382. 


HER  LETTER  TO   THE  EMPRESS-QUEEN.  71 

ance,  the  chief  object  of  which  was  to  warn  her  against  holding 
such  frequent  conversations  with  Mercy.  She  apparently  thought 
that  the  writer's  desire  was  to  remove  the  embassador  from  her 
confidence  that  he  himself  might  occupy  the  vacant  place,  and  she 
showed  her  opinion  of  the  value  of  the  advice  by  reading  it  to 
Mercy  and  then  putting  it  into  the  fire. 

Some  extracts  from  the  first  letter  which  she  wrote  to  her 
mother  in  1773  will  serve  to  give  us  a  fair  idea  of  her  feelings  at 
this  time,  both  from  what  it  does  and  from  what  it  does  not  men- 
tion. The  intelligence  which  has  reached  her  about  her  sister 
recalls  to  her  mind  her  own  anxiety  to  become  a  motljer,  her  dis- 
appointment in  this  matter  being,  indeed,  one  of  the  most  con- 
stant topics  of  lamentation  in  the  letters  of  both  daughter  and 
mother,  till  it  was  removed  by  the  birth  of  the  princess  royal. 
But  that  is  her  only  vexation.  In  every  other  respect  she  seems 
perfectly  contented  with  the  course  which  affairs  are  taking; 
while  we  see  how  thoroughly  unspoiled  she  is  both  in  the  warmth 
of  the  affection  with  which  she  speaks  of  her  family  and  greets 
the  little  memorials  of  home  which  have  been  sent  her ;  and  still 
more  in  the  continuance  of  her  acts  of  charity,  and  in  her  design 
that  her  benevolence  should  be  unknown. 

"  I  hear  that  the  queen*  is  expecting  to  be  confined.  I  hope 
her  child  will  be  a  son.  When  shall  I  be  able  to  say  the  same  of 
myself  ?  They  tell  me,  too,  that  the  grand  dukef  and  his  wife  are 
going  into  Spain.  I  greatly  wish  that  they  would  conceive  a 
dread  of  the  sea-voyage,  and  take  this  place  in  their  way.  The 
journey  would  be  a  little  longer  ;  but  they  would  be  well  received 
here,  for  my  brother  is  very  highly  thought  of ;  and,  besides,  I 
am  somewhat  jealous  at  being  the  only  one  of  my  family  unac- 
quainted with  my  sister-in-law. 

"The  pictures  of  my  little  brothers  which  you  have  sent  me 
have  given  me  great  pleasure.  I  have  had  them  set  in  a  ring,  and 
wear  it  every  day.  Those  who  have  seen  my  brothers  at  Vienna 
pronounce  the  pictures  very  like,  and  every  one  thinks  them  very 
good-looking.  New-year's-day  here  is  a  day  of  a  great  crowd  and 
grand  ceremony.  There  was  nothing  either  to  blame  or  to  praise 
in  the  degree  in  which  I  adopted  my  dear  mamma's  advice.  The 
Favorite  came  to  pay  her  respects  to  me  at  a  moment  when  my 

*  Her  sister  Caroline,  Queen  of  Naples.  9 

\  Her  brother  Leopold,  at  present  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany,  afterward  em- 
peror. His  wife,  Marie  Louise,  was  a  daughter  of  Charles  III.  of  Spain. 


72  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

apartment  was  very  full.  It  was  impossible  for  me  to  address 
myself  to  every  one  separately,  so  I  spoke  to  the  whole  company 
in  a  body;  and  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  both  the  Favorite 
and  her  sister,  who  is  her  principal  adviser,  were  pleased ;  though 
I  have  also  reason  to  believe  that,  two  days  afterward,  M.  d'Aiguil- 
lon  tried  to  persuade  them  that  they  had  been  ill-treated.  As  for 
the  minister  himself,  he  has  never  complained  of  me,  and,  indeed, 
I  have  always  been  careful  to  treat  him  equally  well  with  the  rest 
of  his  colleagues. 

"  You  will  have  learned,  my  dear  mamma,  that  the  Due  d'Or- 
leans  and  the  Due  de  Chartres  are  returned  from  banishment.  I 
am  glad  of  it  for  the  sake  of  peace,  and  for  that  of  the  tranquil- 
lity and  comfort  of  the  king.  But,  if  she  had  been  in  the  king's 
place,  I  do  not  think  my  dear  mamma  would  have  accepted  the 
letter  which  they  have  dared  to  write,  and  which  they  have  got 
printed  in  foreign  newspapers.* 

"  I  was  glad  to  see  M.  de  Stormont.f  I  asked  him  all  the  news 
about  my  dear  family,  and  it  was  a  pleasure  to  him  to  inform  me. 
He  seems  to  me  to  have  overcome  his  prejudices,  and  every  one 
here  thinks  him  a  man  of  thorough  high-breeding.  I  have  de- 
sired M.  de  Mercy  to  invite  him  to  one  of  my  Monday  balls.  We 
are  going  to  have  one  at  Madame  de  Noailles'.  They  will  last  till 
Ash- Wednesday.  They  will  begin  an  hour  or  two  later  than  they 

*  They,  with  several  of  the  princes  of  the  blood  and  some  of  the  peers,  as 
already  mentioned,  had  been  banished  for  their  opposition  to  the  abolition 
of  the  Parliaments ;  but  now,  in  the  hopes  of  obtaining  the  king's  consent  to 
his  marriage  with  Madame  de  Montessan,  a  widow  of  enormous  wealth,  the 
Due  d'Orleans  made  overtures  for  forgiveness,  accompanying  them,  however, 
with  a  letter  so  insolent  that  it  might  well  be  regarded  as  an  aggravation  of 
his  original  offense.  According  to  Madame  du  Deffand  (letter  to  Walpole, 
December  13th,  1772,  vol.  ii.,  p.  293),  he  was  only  prevented  from  reconciling 
himself  to  the  king  some  months  before  by  his  son,  the  Due  de  Chartres  (af- 
terward the  infamous  Egalite),  whom  she  describes  as  "  a  young  man,  very 
obstinate,  and  who  hopes  to  play  a  great  part  by  putting  himself  at  the  head 
of  a  faction."  The  princes,  however,  in  the  view  of  the  shrewd  old  lady,  had 
made  the  mistake  of  greatly  overrating  their  own  importance.  "  These  great 
princes,  since  their  protest,  have  been  just  citizens  of  the  Rue  St.  Denis.  JNo 
one  at  court  ever  perceived  their  absence,  and  no  one  in  the  city  ever  noticed 
their  presence." 

f  Lord  Stormont,  the  English  Embassador  at  Vienna,  from  which  city  he 
was  removed  to  Paris.  In  the  preceding  September  Maria  Teresa  had  com- 
plained of  him  as  being  "  animated  against  her  cabinet,  from  indignation  at 
the  partition  of  Poland." 


SHE  READS  HUME'S  HISTORY.  "73 

used  to,  that  we  may  not  be  so  tired  as  we  were  last  year  when 
we  came  to  Lent.  In  spite  of  the  amusements  of  the  carnival,  I 
am  always  faithful  to  my  poor  harp,  and  they  say  that  I  make 
great  progress  with  it.  I  sing,  too,  every  week  at  the  concert 
given  by  my  sister  of  Provence.  Although  there  are  very  few 
people  there,  they  are  very  well  amused ;  and  my  singing  gives 
great  pleasure  to  my  two  sisters.*  I  also  find  time  to  read  a  lit- 
tle. I  have  begun  the  'History  of  England'  by  Mr.  Hume.  It 
seems  to  me  very  interesting,  though  it  is  necessary  to  recollect 
that  it  is  a  Protestant  who  has  written  it. 

"All  the  newspapers  have  spoken  of  the  terrible  fire  at  the  H6- 
tel-Dieu.f  They  were  obliged  to  remove  the  patients  into  the 
cathedral  and  the  archbishop's  palace.  There  are  generally  from 
five  to  six  thousand  patients  in  the  hospital.  In  spite  of  all  the 
exertions  that  were  made,  it  was  impossible  to  prevent  the  de- 
struction of  a  great  part  of  the  building ;  and,  though  it  is  now  a 
fortnight  since  the  accident  happened,  the  fire  is  still  smoldering 
in  the  cellars.  The  archbishop  has  enjoined  a  collection  to  be 
made  for  the  sufferers,  and  I  have  sent  him  a  thousand  crowns. 
I  said  nothing  of  my  having  done  so  to  any  one,  and  the  compli- 
ments which  they  have  paid  me  on  it  have  been  embarrassing  to 
me ;  but  they  have  said  it  was  right  to  let  it  be  known  that  I  had 
sent  this  money,  for  the  sake  of  the  example." 

She  was  on  this,  as  on  many  other  occasions,  one  of  those  who 

"  Do  good  by  stealth,  and  blush  to  find  it  fame." 

One  of  her  sayings,  with  which  she  more  than  once  repressed 
the  panegyrics  of  those  who,  as  it  seemed  to  her,  extolled  her  be- 
nevolence too  loudly,  was  that  it  was  not  worth  while  to  say  a 
great  deal  about  giving  a  little  assistance ;  and,  on  this  occasion, 
so  secret  had  she  intended  to  keep  her  benevolence  that  she  had 
not  mentioned  it  to  De  Vermond,  or  even  to  Mercy.  But  she 
judged  rightly  that  the  empress  would  enter  into  the  feelings 

*  That  is,  sisters-in-law — the  Princesses  Clotilde  and  Elizabeth. 

f  The  Hotel-Dieu  was  the  most  ancient  hospital  in  Paris.  It  had  already 
existed  several  hundred  years  when  Philip  Augustus  enlarged  it,  and  gave  it 
the  name  of  Maison  de  Dieu.  Henry  IV.  and  his  successors  had  further  en- 
larged it,  and  enriched  it  with  monuments ;  and  even  the  revolutionists  re- 
spected it,  though  when  they  had  disowned  the  existence  of  God  they  changed 
its  name  to  that  of  L'Hospice  de  1'Humanite.  It  had  been  almost  destroyed 
by  fire  a  fortnight  before  the  date  of  this  letter,  on  the  night  of  the  29th  of 
December. 


74  LIFE  OF  MA.RIE  ANTOINETTE. 

which  had  prompted  both  the  act  and  also  the  silence ;  and  she 
was  amply  rewarded  by  her  mother's  praise. 

"  I  have  been  enchanted,"  the  empress  wrote,  in  instant  reply, 
"  with  the  thousand  crowns  that  you  have  sent  to  the  H6tel-Dieu, 
and  you  speak  very  properly  in  saying  that  you  have  been  vexed 
at  people  speaking  to  you  about  it.  Such  actions  ought  to  be 
known  to  God  alone,  and  I  am  certain  that  you  acted  in  that 
spirit.  Still,  those  who  published  your  act  had  good  reasons  for 
what  they  did,  as  you  say  yourself,  thinking  of  the  influence  of 
your  example.  My  dear  little  girl,  we  owe  this  example  to  the 
world,  and  to  set  such  is  one  of  the  most  essential  and  most  deli- 
cate duties  of  our  condition.  The  more  frequently  you  can  per- 
form acts  of  benevolence  and  generosity  without  crippling  your 
means  too  much,  the  better ;  and  what  would  be  ostentation  and 
prodigality  in  another  is  becoming  and  necessary  for  those  of  out- 
rank. We  have  no  other  resources  but  those  of  conferring  bene- 
fits and  showing  kindness ;  and  this  is  even  more  the  case  with  a 
dauphiness  or  a  queen  consort,  which  I  myself  have  not  been." 

There  could  hardly  be  a  better  specimen  of  the  principles  on 
which  the  empress  herself  had  governed  her  extensive  dominions, 
or  of  the  value  of  her  example  and  instructions  to  her  daughter, 
than  that  which  is  contained  in  these  few  lines ;  but  it  is  not  al- 
ways that  such  lessons  are  so  closely  followed  as  they  were  by 
the  virtuous  and  beneficent  dauphiness.  The  winter  passed  on 
cheerfully ;  the  ordinary  amusements  of  the  palace  being  varied 
by  her  going  with  the  dauphin  and  the  Count  and  Countess  of 
Provence  to  one  of  the  public  masked  balls  of  the  opera-house,  a 
diversion  which,  considering  the  unavoidably  mixed  character  of 
the  company,  it  is  hard  to  avoid  thinking  somewhat  unsuited  to 
so  august  a  party,  but  one  which  had  been  too  frequently  counte- 
nanced by  different  members  of  the  royal  family  for  several  years 
for  such  a  visit  to  cause  remarks,  though  the  masks  of  the  princes 
and  princesses  could  not  long  preserve  their  secret.  Another  fa- 
vorite amusement  of  the  court  at  this  time  was  the  representation 
of  proverbs,  in  which  Marie  Antoinette  acted  with  the  little  Eliza- 
beth; and  we  have  a  special  account  of  one  such  performance, 
which  was  given  in  her  honor  by  one  of  her  ladies,  having  been 
originally  devised  for  the  Day  of  Saint  Anthony,  as  her  saint's 
day,*  though  it  was  postponed  on  account  of  her  being  confined 

*  St.  Anthony's  Day  was  June  14th,  and  her  name  of  Antoinette  was  re- 
garded as  placing  her  under  his  especial  protection. 


THE  PARTITION  OF  POLAND.  75 

to  her  room  with  a  cold.  The  proverb  wa3,  "Better  late  than 
never ;"  and,  as  the  most  acceptable  compliment  to  the  dauphin- 
ess,  the  managers  introduced  a  number  of  characters  attired  in  a 
diversity  of  costumes,  intended  to  represent  the  natives  of  all  the 
countries  ruled  over  by  the  Empress-queen,  each  of  whom  made  a 
speech,  in  which  the  praises  of  Maria  Teresa  and  Marie  Antoinette 
were  happily  combined. 

The  king  got  better,  and  intrigues  of  all  kinds  were  revived; 
but,  aided  by  Mercy's  counsels,  and  supported  by  the  dauphin's 
unalterable  affection,  Marie  Antoinette  disconcerted  all  that  were 
aimed  at  her  by  the  uniform  prudence  of  her  conduct.  Happily 
for  her,  with  all  his  defects,  her  husband  was  still  one  in  whom 
she  could  feel  perfect  confidence.  As  she  told  Mercy,  under  any 
conceivable  circumstances  she  was  sure  of  his  views  and  inten- 
tions being  always  right ;  the  only  difficulty  was  to  engage  him 
in  a  sufficiently  decided  course  of  action,  which  his  timid  and 
sluggish  disposition  rendered  almost  painful  to  him.  And  just 
at  this  moment  she  was  more  anxious  than  usual  to  inspire  him 
with  her  own  feelings  and  spirit,  because  she  could  not  avoid  fear- 
ing that  the  discontent  with  which  the  few  people  in  France  who 
deserved  the  name  of  statesmen  regarded  the  recent  partition  of 
Poland  might  create  a  coolness  between  France  and  Austria,  cal- 
culated to  endanger  the  alliance,  the  continuance  of  which  was  so 
indispensable  to  her  happiness,  and,  as  she  was  firmly  convinced, 
to  the  welfare  of  both  countries.  She  conversed  more  than  once 
with  Mercy  on  the  subject,  and  her  reflections,  both  on  the  parti- 
tion and  on  the  degree  in  which  the  mutual  interest  of  the  two 
nations  was  concerned  in  their  remaining  united,  gave  him  a  very 
good  idea  of  her  political  capacity.  He  also  reported  to  his  im- 
perial mistress  that  he  had  found  out  that  King  Louis  had  con- 
ceived the  same  opinion  of  her,  and  had  begun  to  discuss  affairs 
of  importance  with  her.  He  trusted  that  his  majesty  would  get 
a  habit  of  doing  so ;  since,  if  his  life  should  be  spared,  she  would 
thus  in  time  become  able  to  exert  a  very  useful  influence  over 
him ;  and  as,  at  all  events,  "  it  was  absolutely  certain  that  some 
day  or  other  she  would  govern  the  kingdom,  it  was  of  the  very 
greatest  consequence  to  the  success  of  the  great  and  brilliant  ca- 
reer which  she  had  before  her  that  she'  should  previously  accus- 
tom herself  to  regard  affairs  with  such  principles  and  views  as 
were  suitable  to  the  position  which  she  must  occupy." 


76  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Marie  Antoinette  is  anxious  for  the  Maintenance  of  the  Alliance  between 
France  and  Austria.  —  She,  with  the  Dauphin,  makes  a  State  Entry  into 
Paris. — The  "  Dames  de  la  Halle." — She  praises  the  Courtesy  of  the  Dau- 
phin.— Her  Delight  at  the  Enthusiasm  of  the  Citizens. — She,  with  the  Dau- 
phin, goes  to  the  Theatre,  and  to  the  Fair  of  St.  Ovide,  and  to  St.  Cloud. — 
Is  enthusiastically  received  everywhere. — She  learns  to  drive. — She  makes 
some  Relaxations  in  Etiquette.  —  Marriage  of  the  Comte  d' Artois.  —  The 
King's  Health  grows  Bad. — Visit  of  Marshal  Lacy  to  Versailles. — The  King 
catches  the  Small-pox.  —  Madame  du  Barri  quits  Versailles. — The  King 
dies. 

POLITICS  were,  indeed,  taking  such  a  hold  over  Marie  Antoinette 
that  they  begin  to  furnish  some  topics  for  her  letters  to  her  moth- 
er, one  of  which  shows  that  she  had  already  formed  that  opinion 
of  French  fickleness  which  she  had  afterward  too  abundant  cause 
to  maintain.  "  I  do  hope,"  she  says,  "  that  the  good  intelligence 
between  our  two  nations  will  last.  One  good  thing  in  this  coun- 
try is,  that  if  ill-natured  feelings  are  quick  to  arise,  they  disappear 
with  equal  rapidity.  The  King  of  Prussia  is  innately  a  bad  neigh- 
bor, but  the  English  will  also  always  be  bad  neighbors  to  France, 
and  the  sea  has  never  prevented  them  from  doing  her  great  mis- 
chief." We  might,  firstly,  demur  to  any  actions  of  our  statesmen 
being  classed  with  the  treacherous  aggressions  of  Frederick  of 
Prussia,  nor  did  many  years  of  her  husband's  reign  pass  over  be- 
fore the  greatest  of  English  ministers  proposed  and  concluded  a 
treaty  between  the  two  countries,  which  he  fondly  and  wisely 
hoped  would  lay  the  foundations  of  a  better  understanding,  if  not 
of  a  lasting  peace,  between  the  two  countries.  But  even  before 
that  treaty  was  framed,  and  before  Pitt's  voice  had  become  pre- 
dominant in  the  State,  Marie  Antoinette's  complaint  that  the  sea 
had  never  disarmed  us  of  power  to  injure  France  had  received 
the  strongest  exemplification  that  as  yet  the  history  of  the  two 
nations  afforded  in  Rodney's  great  victory.  However,  she  soon 
turns  to  more  agreeable  subjects,  and  proceeds  to  speak  of  a  pleas- 
ure to  which  she  was  looking  forward,  and  which,  as  we  have  al- 
ready seen,  had  been  unaccountably  deferred  till  this  time,  in  de- 


THE  STATE  ENTRANCE  INTO  PARIS.  77 

fiance  of  all  propriety  and  of  all  precedent.  "I  hope  that  the 
dauphin  and  I  shall  make  our  entry  into  Paris  next  month,  which 
will  be  a  great  delight  to  me.  I  do  not  venture  to  speak  of  it 
yet,  though  I  have  the  king's  promise :  it  would  not  be  the  first 
time  that  they  had  made  him  change  his  mind." 

The  most  elaborate  exposure  of  the  cabals  and  intrigues  which 
ever  since  her  marriage  had  been  persistently  directed  against 
Marie  Antoinette  could  not  paint  them  so  forcibly  as  the  simple 
fact  that  three  years  had  now  elapsed  since  her  marriage ;  and 
that,  though  the  state  entrance  of  the  heir  of  the  crown  and  his 
bride  into  the  metropolis  of  the  kingdom  ought  to  have  been  a 
prominent  part  of  the  marriage  festivities,  it  had  never  yet  taken 
place.  Nor,  though  Louis  had  at  last  given  his  formal  promise 
that  it  should  be  no  longer  delayed,  did  the  young  pair  even  yet 
feel  sure  that  an  influence  superior  to  theirs  might  not  induce 
him  to  recall  it.  However,  at  last  the  intrigues  were  baffied,  and, 
on  the  8th  of  June,  the  visit,  which  had  been  expected  by  the 
Parisians  with  an  eagerness  exceeding  that  of  the  dauphiness  her- 
self, was  made.  It  was  in  every  respect  successful ;  and  it  is  due 
to  Marie  Antoinette  to  let  the  outline  of  the  proceeding  be  de- 
scribed by  herself. 

"  Versailles,  June  14th. 

"  MY  DEAREST  MOTHER, — I  absolutely  blush  for  your  kindness 
to  me.  The  day  before  yesterday  Mercy  sent  me  your  precious 
letter,  and  yesterday  I  received  a  second.  That  is  indeed  passing 
one's  fete  day  happily.  On  Tuesday  I  had  a  fete  which  I  shall 
never  forget  all  my  life.  We  made  our  entrance  into  Paris.  As 
for  honors,  we  received  all  that  we  could  possibly  imagine ;  but 
they,  though  very  well  in  their  way,  were  not  what  touched  me 
most.  What  was  really  affecting  was  the  tenderness  and  earnest- 
ness of  the  poor  people,  who,  in  spite  of  the  taxes  with  which 
they  are  overwhelmed,  were  transported  with  joy  at  seeing  us. 
When  we  went  to  walk  in  the  Tuileries,  there  was  so  vast  a  crowd 
that  we  were  three-quarters  of  an  hour  without  being  able  to 
move  either  forward  or  backward.  The  dauphin  and  I  gave  re- 
peated orders  to  the  Guards  not  to  beat  any  one,  which  had  a 
very  good  effect.  Such  excellent  order  was  kept  the  whole  day 
that,  in  spite  of  the  enormous  crowd  which  followed  us  everywhere, 
not  a  person  was  hurt.  When  we  returned  from  our  walk  we 
went  up  to  an  open  terrace,  and  staid  there  half  an  hour.  I  can 
not  describe  to  you,  my  dear  mamma,  the  transports  of  joy  and 


78  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

affection  which  every  one  exhibited  toward  us.  Before  we  with- 
drew we  kissed  our  hands  to  the  people,  which  gave  them  great 
pleasure.  What  a  happy  thing  it  is  for  persons  in  our  rank  to 
gain  the  love  of  a  whole  nation  so  cheaply !  Yet  there  is  noth- 
ing so  precious :  I  felt  it  thoroughly,  and  shall  never  forget  it. 

"  Another  circumstance  which  gave  great  pleasure  on  that  glo- 
rious day  was  the  behavior  of  the  dauphin.  He  made  admirable 
replies  to  every  address,  and  remarked  every  thing  that  was  done 
in  his  honor,  and  especially  the  earnestness  and  delight  of  the 
people,  to  whom  he  showed  great  kindness.  Of  all  the  copies  of 
verses  which  were  given  me  on  this  occasion,  these  are  the  pretti- 
est which  I  inclose  to  you.*  To-morrow  we  are  going  to  Paris 
to  the  opera.  There  is  great  anxiety  for  us  to  do  so ;  and  I  be- 
lieve that  we  shall  go  on  two  other  days  also  to  visit  the  French 
and  the  Italian  comedy.  I  feel  more  and  more,  every  day  of  my 
life,  how  much  my  dear  mamma  has  done  for  my  establishment. 
I  was  the  youngest  of  all  her  daughters,  and  she  has  treated  me  as 
if  I  were  the  eldest ;  so  that  my  whole  soul  is  filled  with  the  most 
tender  gratitude. 

"  The  king  has  had  the  kindness  to  procure  the  release  of  three 
hundred  and  twenty  prisoners,  for  debts  due  to  nurses  who  have 
brought  up  their  children.  Their  release  took  place  two  days 
after  our  entrance.  I  wished  to  attend  Divine  service  on  my  fete 
day  ;  but  the  evening  before,  my  sister,  the  Countess  of  Provence, 
had  a  party  for  me,  a  proverb  with  songs  and  fire-works,  and  this 
distraction  forced  me  to  put  off  going  to  church  till  the  next  day. 

"  I  am  very  glad  to  hear  that  you  have  such  good  hope  of  the 
continuance  of  peace.  While  the  intriguers  of  this  country  are 
devouring  one  another,  they  will  not  harass  their  neighbors  nor 
their  allies." 

She  does  not  enter  into  details ;  the  pomp  and  ceremony  of 
their  reception  by  nobles  and  magistrates  had  been  in  her  eyes  as 
nothing  in  comparison  with  the  cordial  welcome  given  to  them 
by  the  poorer  citizens.  While  they,  on  their  part,  must  have 
been  equally  gratified  at  perceiving  the  sincere  pleasure  with 
which  she  and  the  dauphin  accepted  their  salutations ;  a  feeling 
how  different  from  that  which  had  animated  any  of  their  princes 
for  many  years,  we  may  judge  from  the  order  given  to  the  guards 

*  They  have  not,  however,  been  preserved. 


SPLENDOR  OF  THE  SCENE  IN  THE  FRENCH  CAPITAL.     79 

to  forbear  beating  the  crowd  which  gathered  round  them,  as  no 
doubt,  without  such  an  order,  the  soldiers  would  have  thought  it 
usual  and  natural  to  do. 

Not  that  the  proceedings  of  the  day  had  not  been  magnificent 
and  imposing  enough  to  attract  the  admiration  of  any  who  thought 
less  of  the  hearts  of  the  citizens  than  of  pomp  and  splendor.  The 
royal  train,  conveyed  from  Versailles  in  six  state  carriages,  was 
received  at  the  city  gate  by  the  governor,  the  Marshal  Due  de 
Brissac,  accompanied  by  the  head  of  the  police,  the  provost  of  the 
merchants,  and  all  the  other  municipal  authorities.  The  marshal 
himself  was  the  heir  of  the  Comte  de  Brissac  who,  nearly  two  cent- 
uries before,  being  also  Governor  of  Paris,  had  tendered  to  the 
victorious  Henry  IV.  the  submission  of  the  city.  But  Henry  was 
as  yet  only  the  chief  of  a  party,  not  the  accepted  sovereign  of  the 
whole  nation;  and  the  enthusiasm  with  which  half  the  citizens 
raised  their  shouts  of  exultation  in  his  honor  had  its  drawback  in 
the  sullen  silence  of  the  other  half,  who  regarded  the  great  Bour- 
bon as  their  conqueror  rather  than  their  king,  and  his  triumphant 
entrance  as  their  defeat  and  humiliation. 

To-day  all  the  citizens  were  but  one  party.  As  but  one  voice 
was  heard,  so  but  one  heart  gave  utterance  to  it.  The  joy  was  as 
unanimous  as  it  was  loud.  From  the  city  gates  the  royal  party 
passed  on  to  the  great  national  cathedral  of  Notre  Dame,  and 
from  thence  to  the  church  dedicated  by  Clovis,  the  first  Christian 
king,  to  St.  Genevieve,  whose  recent  restoration  was  the  most 
creditable  work  of  the  present  reign,  and  which  subsequently,  un- 
der the  new  name  of  the  Pantheon,  was  destined  to  become  the 
resting-place  of  many  of  the  worthies  whose  memory  the  nation 
cherishes  with  enduring  pride.  At  last  they  reached  the  Tuile- 
ries,  their  progress  having  been  arrested  at  different  points  by 
deputations  of  all  kinds  with  loyal  and  congratulatory  addresses ; 
at  the  H6tel-Dieu  by  the  prioress  with  a  company  of  nuns;  on 
the  Quai  Conti  by  the  Provost  of  the  Mint  with  his  officers ;  be- 
fore the  college  bearing  the  name  of  its  founder,  Louis  le  Grand, 
the  Rector  of  the  University,  at  the  head  of  his  students,  greeted 
them  in  a  Latin  speech,  at  the  close  of  which  he  secured  the  re- 
doubling of  the  acclamations  of  the  pupils  by  promising  them  a 
holiday.  Not  that  the  cheers  required  any  increase.  The  citizens 
in  their  ecstasy  did  not  even  think  their  voices  sufficient.  As  the 
royal  couple  moved  slowly  through  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries 
arm-in-arm,  every  hand  was  employed  in  clapping,  hats  were 


80  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

thrown  up,  and  every  token  of  joy  which  enthusiasm  ever  de- 
vised was  displayed  to  the  equally  delighted  visitors.  "  Good 
heavens,  what  a  crowd  !"  said  Marie  Antoinette  to  De  Brissac, 
who  had  some  difficulty  in  keeping  his  place  at  her  side.  "  Ma- 
dame," said  the  old  warrior,  as  courtly  as  he  was  valiant,  "  if  I 
may  say  so  without  offending  my  lord  the  dauphin,  they  are  all 
so  many  lovers."  When  they  had  made  the  circuit  of  the  garden 
and  returned  to  the  palace,  the  most  curious  part  of  the  day's  cer- 
emonies awaited  them.  A  banqueting-table  was  arranged  for  six 
hundred  guests,  and  those  guests  were  not  the  nobles  of  the  na- 
tion, nor  the  clergy,  nor  the  most  renowned  warriors,  nor  the  mu- 
nicipal officers,  but  the  fish-women  of  the  city  market.  A  custom 
so  old  that  its  origin  can  not  be  traced  had  established  the  right 
of  these  dames  to  bear  an  especial  part  in  such  festivities.  In  the 
course  of  the  morning  they  had  made  their  future  queen  free  of 
their  market,  with  an  offering  of  fruits  and  flowers.  And  now, 
as,  according  to  a  singular  usage  of  the  court,  no  male  subject  was 
ever  allowed  to  sit  at  table  with  a  queen  or  dauphiness  of  France, 
the  dinner  party  over  which  the  youthful  pair,  sitting  side  by  side, 
presided,  consisted  wholly  of  these  dames  whose  profession  is  not 
generally  considered  as  imparting  any  great  refinement  to  the 
manners,  and  who,  before  the  close  of  the  entertainment,  showed, 
in  more  cases  than  one,  that  they  had  imported  some  of  the  no- 
tions and  fashions  of  their  more  ordinary  places  of  resort  into  the 
royal  palace. 

It  was  characteristic  of  Marie  Antoinette  that,  in  her  descrip- 
tion of  the  day  to  her  mother,  she  had  dwelt  with  special  empha- 
sis on  the  gracious  deportment  of  her  husband.  It  was  equally 
natural  for  Mercy  to  assure  the  empress*  that  it  had  been  the 
grace  and  elegance  of  the  dauphiness  herself  which  had  attracted 
general  admiration,  and  that  it  was  to  her  example  and  instruc- 
tion that  every  one  attributed  the  courteous  demeanor  which,  as 
he  did  not  deny,  the  young  prince  had  unquestionably  exhibited. 
It  was  she  whom  the  king,  as  he  affirmed,  had  complimented  on 
the  result  of  the  day ;  a  success  which  she  had  gracefully  attrib- 
uted to  himself,  saying  that  he  must  be  greatly  beloved  by  the 
Parisians  to  induce  them  to  give  his  children  so  splendid  a  recep- 
tion.f  To  whomsoever  it  was  owing,  the  embassador  certainly 

*  Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa,  June  16th,  1773,  Arneth,  i.,  p.  467. 
f  "  Marie  Antoinette,  Louis  XVI.,  et  la  Famille  Royale,"  p.  23. 


SUE  VISITS  THE  PARISIAN  THEATRES.  81 

did  not  exaggerate  the  opinion  of  the  world  around  him  when  he 
affirmed  that,  in  the  memory  of  man,  no  one  recollected  any  cere- 
mony which  had  made  so  great  a  sensation,  and  had  been  attend- 
ed by  so  complete  a  success. 

And  it  was  followed  up,  as  she  expected,  by  several  visits  to  the 
different  Parisian  theatres,  which,  in  compliance  with  the  king's 
express  direction,  were  made  in  all  the  state  which  would  have 
been  observed  had  he  himself  been  present.  Salutes  were  fired 
from  the  Bastile  and  the  H6tel  des  Invalides ;  companies  of  Roy- 
al Guards  lined  the  vestibule  and  the  passages  of  the  theatre ;  sen- 
tinels stood  even  on  the  stage ;  but,  fond  as  the  French  are  of 
martial  finery  and  parade,  the  spectators  paid  little  attention  to 
the  soldiers,  or  even  to  the  actors.  All  eyes  were  fixed  on  the 
dauphiness  alone.  At  Mercy's  suggestion,  the  dauphin  and  she 
had  previously  obtained  the  king's  permission  to  allow  the  vio- 
lation of  the  rule  which  forbade  any  clapping  of  hands  in  the 
presence  of  royalty.  This  relaxation  of  etiquette  was  hailed  as  a 
great  condescension  by  the  play -goers,  and  throughout  the  evening 
of  their  appearance  at  the  Italian  comedy  the  spectators  had  al- 
ready made  abundant  use  of  their  new  privilege,  when  the  enthu- 
siasm was  brought  to  a  height  by  a  chorus  which  ended  with  the 
loyal  burden  of  "  Vive  le  roi !"  Clerval,  the  performer  of  the 
principal  part,  added,  "  Et  ses  chers  enfants ;"  and  the  compliment 
was  re-echoed  from  every  part  of  the  house  with  continued  clap- 
ping and  cheering,  till  it  reminded  Marie  Antoinette  of  a  some- 
what similar  scene  which,  as  a  child,  she  Lad  witnessed  in  the  the- 
atre of  Vienna,*  when  the  empress,  from  her  box,  had  announced 
to  the  audience  that  a  son  (the  heir  to  the  empire)  had  just  been 
born  to  the  Archduke  Leopold. 

The  ice  being  thus,  as  it  were,  once  broken,  the  dauphin  and 
dauphiness  took  many  opportunities  of  appearing  in  public  dur- 
ing the  following  months,  visiting  the  great  Paris  fair  of  St. 
Ovide,  as  it  was  called,  walking  up  and  down  the  alleys,  and  mak- 
ing purchases  at  the  stalls ;  the  whole  Place  Louis  XV.,  to  which 
the  fair  had  recently  been  removed,  being  illuminated,  and  the 
crowd  greeting  them  with  repeated  and  enthusiastic  cheers.  They 
also  went  in  state  to  the  exhibition  of  pictures  at  the  Louvre,  and 
drove  to  St.  Cloud  to  walk  about  the  park  attached  to  that  palace, 
which  was  one  of  the  most  favorite  places  of  resbrt  for  the  Paris- 

*  Marie  Antoinette  to  Maria  Theresa,  July  17th,  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  8. 

6 


82  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

ians  on  the  fine  summer  evenings;  so  that,  while  the  court  was 
at  Versailles,  scarcely  a  week  elapsed  without  her  giving  them  an 
opportunity  of  seeing  her,  in  which  it  was  evident  that  she  fully 
shared  their  pleasure.  To  be  loved  was  with  her  a  necessity  of 
her  very  nature ;  and,  as  she  was  constantly  referring  with  pride 
to  the  attachment  felt  by  the  Austrians  for  her  mother,  she  fixed 
her  own  chief  wishes  on  inspiring  with  a  similar  feeling  those 
who  were  to  become  her  and  her  husband's  subjects.  She  was, 
at  least  for  the  time,  rewarded  as  she  desired.  This  is,  indeed, 
said  they,  the  best  of  innovations,  the  best  of  revolutions,*  to  see 
the  princes  mingling  with  the  people,  and  interesting  themselves 
in  their  amusements.  This  was  really  to  unite  all  classes ;  to  at- 
tach the  country  to  the  palace  and  the  palace  to  the  country  ;  and 
it  was  to  the  dauphiness  that  the  credit  of  this  new  state  of 
things  was  universally  attributed. 

She  was  looking  forward  to  a  greater  pleasure  in  a  visit  from 
her  brother,  the  emperor,  which  the  empress  hoped  might  be  at- 
tended with  consequences  more  important  than  those  of  passing 
pleasure ;  since  she  trusted  to  his  influence,  and,  if  opportunity 
should  occur,  to  his  remonstrances,  to  induce  the  dauphin  to  break 
through  the  unaccountable  coldness  with  which,  in  some  respects, 
he  still  treated  his  beautiful  wife.  But  Joseph  was  forced  to 
postpone  his  visit,  and  the  fulfillment  of  the  empress's  anticipa- 
tions was  also  postponed  for  some  years. 

However,  Marie  Antoinette  never  allowed  disappointments  to 
dwell  in  her  mind  longer  than  she  could  help.  She  rather  strove 
to  dispel  the  recollection  of  them  by  such  amusements  as  were 
within  her  reach.  She  learned  to  drive,  and  found  great  diver- 
sion in  being  her  own  charioteer  through  the  glades  of  the  for- 
est. She  began  to  make  further  inroads  in  the  court  etiquette, 
giving  balls  in  which  she  broke  through  the  custom  which  pre- 
scribed that  special  places  should  be  marked  out  for  the  royal 
family,  and  directed  that  the  princes  and  princesses  should  sit 
with  the  rest  of  the  company  during  the  intervals  between  the 
dances ;  an  arrangement  which  enabled  her  to  talk  to  every  one, 
and  which  gained  her  general  good-will  from  the  graciousness  of 
her  manner.  She  did  not  greatly  trouble  herself  at  the  jealousy 
of  her  popularity  openly  displayed  by  her  aunts  and  her  sister- 


*  "  Histoire  de  Marie  Antoinette,"  par  M.  de  Goncourt,  p.  50.     Quoting  an 
unpublished  journal  by  M.  M.  Hardy,  in  the  Royal  Library. 


DECLINE  OF  THE  KING'S  HEALTH.  83 

in-law,  who  could  not  bear  to  hear  her  called  "  La  bellissima."* 
Nor  was  her  influence  weakened  when,  in  November,  a  fresh  prin- 
cess, the  sister  of  Madame  de  Provence,  arrived  from  Italy,  to  be 
married  to  the  Comte  d'Artois,  for  the  bride  was  even  less  attract- 
ive than  her  sister.  According  to  Mercy,  she  was  pale  and  thin, 
had  a  long  nose  and  a  wide  mouth,  danced  badly,  and  was  very 
awkward  in  manner.  So  that  Louis  himself,  though  usually  very 
punctilious  in  his  courtesies  to  those  in  her  position,  could"  not 
forbear  showing  how  little  he  admired  her. 

An  incident  occurred  on  the  evening  of  the  marriage  which  is 
worth  remarking,  from  the  change  which  subsequently  took  place 
in  the  taste  of  the  dauphiness,  who  a  few  years  afterward  pro- 
voked unfavorable  comments  by  the  ardor  with  which  she  sur- 
rendered herself  to  the  excitement  of  the  gaming-table.  As  a 
matter  of  course,  a  grand  party  was  invited  to  the  palace  to  cele- 
brate the  event  of  the  morning ;  and,  as  an  invariable  part  of  such 
entertainments,  a  table  was  set  out  for  the  then  fashionable  game 
of  lansquenet,  at  which  the  king  himself  played,  with  the  royal 
family  and  all  the  principal  persons  of  the  court.  In  the  course 
of  the  evening  Marie  Antoinette  won  more  than  seven  hundred 
pounds;  but  she  was  rather  embarrassed  than  gratified  by  her 
good  fortune.  She  had  tried  to  lose  the  money  back ;  but,  as  she 
had  been  unable  to  succeed,  the  next  morning  she  sent  the  greater 
part  of  it  to  the  curates  of  Versailles  to  be  distributed  among  the 
poor,  and  gave  the  rest  to  some  of  her  own  attendants  who  seemed 
to  her  to  need  it,  being  determined,  as  she  said,  to  keep  none  of  it 
for  herself. 

The  winter  revived  the  apprehensions  concerning  the  king's 
health ;  he  was  manifestly  sinking  into  the  grave,  while 

"  That  which  should  accompany  old  age, 
As  love,  obedience,  honor,  troops  of  friends, 
He  might  not  look  to  have." 

His  very  mistress  began  with  greater  zeal  than  ever,  though  with 
no  better  taste,  to  seek  to  conciliate  the  dauphiness.  She  tried  to 
purchase  her  good-will  by  a  bribe.  She  was  aware  that  the  prin- 
cess greatly  admired  diamonds,  and,  learning  that  a  jeweler  of  Paris 
had  a  pair  of  ear-rings  of  a  size  and  brilliancy  so  extraordinary 

*  It  is  the  name  by  which  she  is  more  than  once  described  in  Madame 
du  Deffand'a  letters.  See  her  "  Correspondence,"  ii.,  p.  857. 


84  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

that  the  price  which  he  asked  for  them  was  700,000  francs,  she 
persuaded  the  Comte  de  Noailles  to  carry  them  to  Marie  Antoi- 
nette to  show  them,  with  a  message  from  herself  that  if  the  dau- 
phiness  liked  to  keep  them,  she  would  induce  the  king  to  make 
her  a  present  of  them.*  Whether  Marie  Antoinette  admired  them 
or  not,  she  had  far  too  proper  a  sense  of  dignity  to  allow  herself 
to  be  entrapped  into  the  acceptance  of  an  obligation  by  one  whom 
she  so  deservedly  despised.  She  replied  coldly  that  she  had  jew- 
els enough,  and  did  not  desire  to  increase  the  number.  But  the 
overture  thus  made  by  Madame  du  Barri  could  not  be  kept  se- 
cret, and  more  than  one  of  her  partisans  followed  the  hint  afford- 
ed by  her  example,  and  showed  a  desire  to  make  their  peace  with 
their  future  queen.  The  Due  d'Aiguillon  himself  was  among  the 
foremost  of  her  courtiers,  and  entreated  the  mediation  of  Mercy 
in  his  favor,  making  the  embassador  his  messenger  to  assure  her 
that  "  he  should  impose  it  upon  himself  as  a  law  to  comply  with 
her  wishes  in  every  thing;"  and  only  desired  that  he  might  be 
allowed  to  know  which  of  the  requests  that  she  might  make  were 
dictated  by  her  own  judgment,  and  which  merely  proceeded  from 
her  indulgent  favor  to  the  importunities  of  others.  For  Marie 
Antoinette  had  of  late  often  broken  through  the  rule  which,  in 
compliance  with  her  mother's  advice,  she  had  at  first  laid  down 
for  herself,  to  abstain  from  recommending  persons  for  preferment ; 
and  had  pressed  many  a  petition  on  the  minister's  notice  as  to 
which  it  was  self-evident  that  she  could  know  nothing  of  their 
merits,  nor  feel  any  personal  interest  in  their  success. 

In  the  spring  of  1774  she  had  an  opportunity  of  convincing 
her  mother  that  any  imputation  of  neglect  of  her  countrymen 
when  visiting  the  court  was  unfounded,  by  the  marked  honors 
which  she  paid  to  Marshal  Lacy,  one  of  the  most  honored  veter- 
ans of  the  Seven  Years'  War.  Knowing  how  highly  he  was  es- 
teemed by  her  mother,  she  took  care  to  be  informed  beforehand 
of  the  day  of  his  arrival.  She  gave  orders  that  he  should  find 
invitations  to  her  parties  awaiting  him.  She  made  arrangements 
to  give  him  a  private  audience  even  before  he  saw  the  king,  where 
her  reception  of  him  showed  how  deep  and  ineffaceable  was  her 
love  for  her  family  and  her  old  home,  even  while  fairly  recog- 
nizing the  fact  that  her  first  duties  and  her  first  affections  now 
belonged  to  France.  The  old  warrior  avowed  that  he  had  been 

*  Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa,  December  llth,  1773,  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  81. 


LAST  ILLNESS  OF  LOUIS  XV.  85 

greatly  moved  by  the  touching  affection  with  which  she  spoke  to 
him  of  her  love  and  veneration  for  her  mother ;  and  by  the  tears 
which  he  saw  in  her  eyes  when  she  said  that  the  one  thing  want- 
ing to  her  happiness  was  the  hope  of  being  allowed  one  day  to 
see  that  dear  mother  once  more.  She  showed  him  some  of  the 
last  presents  which  the  empress  had  sent  her,  and  dwelt  with  fond 
minuteness  of  observation  on  some  views  of  Schonbrunn  and  oth- 
er spots  in  the  neighborhood  of  Vienna  which  were  endeared  to 
her  by  her  early  recollections. 

The  return  of  mild  weather  seemed  to  be  bringing  with  it  some 
return  of  strength  to  the  king,  when,  on  the  28th  of  April,  he  was 
suddenly  seized  with  illness,  which  was  presently  pronounced  by 
the  physicians  to  be  the  small -pox.  All  was  consternation  at 
Versailles,  for  it  was  soon  perceived  to  be  a  severe  if  not  a  malig- 
nant attack;  and  at  the  same  time  all  was  perplexity.  Thirty 
years  before,  when  Louis  had  been  supposed  to  be  on  his  death- 
bed at  Metz,  bishops,  peers,  and  ministers  had  found  in  the  loss  of 
royal  favor  reason  to  repent  the  precipitation  with  which  they 
had  insisted  on  the  withdrawal  of  Madame  de  Chateauroux ;  and 
now,  should  he  again  recover,  it  was  likely  that  Madame  du  Barri 
would  be  equally  resentful,  and  that  the  confessor  who  should 
make  her  removal  a  necessary  condition  of  his  administering  the 
sacraments  of  the  Church  to  the  king,  and  the  courtiers  who 
should  support  or  act  upon  their  requisition,  would  surely  find 
reason  to  repent  it.  Accordingly,  for  the  first  few  days  of  Lou- 
is's illness,  she  remained  at  Versailles ;  but  he  grew  visibly  worse. 
His  daughters,  who,  though  they  had  not  had  the  disease  them- 
selves, tended  his  sick-bed  with  the  most  devoted  and  fearless  af- 
fection, consulted  the  physicians,  who  declared  it  dangerous  to  ad- 
mit of  any  further  delay  in  the  ministration  of  the  rites  of  the 
Church.  He  himself  gave  his  sanction  to  the  ladies'  departure, 
and  then  the  royal  confessor  administered  the  sacraments,  and 
drew  up  a  declaration  to  be  published  in  the  royal  name,  that, 
"though  he  owed  no  account  of  his  conduct  to  any  but  God 
alone,  he  nevertheless  declared  that  he  repented  having  given  rise 
to  scandal  among  his  subjects,  and  only  desired  to  live  for  the 
support  of  religion  and  the  welfare  of  his  people." 

Even  this  avowal  the  Cardinal  de  Roche-Aymer  promised  Ma- 
dame du  Barri  to  suppress;  but  the  royal  confessor,  the  Abbe 
Mandoux,  overruled  him,  and  compelled  its  publication,  in  spite 
of  the  Due  de  Richelieu,  the  chief  confidant  of  the  mistress,  and 


86  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

long  the  chief  minister  and  promoter  of  the  king's  debaucheries, 
who  insulted  the  cardinal  with  the  grossest  abuse  for  his  breach  of 
promise.*  It  may  be  doubted  whether  such  a  compromise  with 
profligacy,  and  such  a  profanation  of  the  most  solemn  rites  of  the 
Church  by  its  ministers,  were  not  the  greatest  scandal  of  all ;  but 
it  was  in  too  complete  harmony  with  their  conduct  throughout 
the  whole  of  the  reign.  And,  as  it  was  impossible  but  that  re- 
ligion itself  should  suffer  in  the  estimation  of  worldly  men  from 
such  an  open  disregard  of  all  but  its  mere  outward  forms,  it  can 
hardly  be  denied  that  the  French  cardinals  and  prelates  about  the 
court  had  almost  as  great  a  share  in  bringing  about  that  general 
feeling  of  contempt  for  all  religion  which  led  to  that  formal  disa- 
vowal of  God  himself  which  was  witnessed  twenty  years  later,  as 
the  scoffers  who  were  now  uniting  against  it,  or  the  professed  in- 
fidels who  then  renounced  it.  Such  as  it  was,  the  king's  act  of 
penitence  was  not  performed  too  soon.  At  the  end  of  the  first 
week  of  May  all  prospect  of  his  recovery  vanished.  Mortification 
set  in,  and  on  the  10th  of  May  he  died. 


"  M6moires  dc  Besenval,"  i.,  p.  304. 


CONFUSION  AND  AGITATION  AT  VERSAILLES.  87 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  Court  leaves  Versailles  for  La  Muette. — Feelings  of  the  New  Sovereigns. 
— Madame  du  Barri  is  sent  to  a  Convent. — Marie  Antoinette  writes  to  Maria 
Teresa. — The  Good  Intentions  of  the  New  Sovereigns. — Madame  Adelaide 
has  the  Small-pox. — Anxieties  of  Maria  Teresa. — Mischievous  Influence  of 
the  Aunts. — Position  and  Influence  of  the  Count  de  Mercy. — Louis  consults 
the  Queen  on  Matters  of  Policy. — Her  Prudence. — She  begins  to  Purify  the 
Court,  and  to  relax  the  Rules  of  Etiquette. — Her  Care  of  her  Pages. — The 
King  and  she  renounce  the  Gifts  of  Le  Joyeux  Av6nement  and  La  Cein- 
ture  de  la  Reine. — She  procures  the  Pardon  of  the  Due  de  Choiseul. 

THROUGHOUT  the  morning  of  the  10th  of  May  there  was  great 
confusion  and  agitation  at  Versailles.  The  physicians  declared 
that  the  king  could  not  live  out  the  day;  and  the  dauphin  had 
decided  on  removing  his  household  to  the  smaller  palace  of  La 
Muette  at  Choisy,  to  spend  in  that  comparative  retirement  the  first 
week  or  two  after  his  grandfather's  death,  during  which  it  would 
hardly  be  decorous  for  the  royal  family  to  be  seen  in  public.  But, 
as  it  was  not  thought  seemly  to  appear  to  anticipate  the  event  by 
quitting  Versailles  while  Louis  was  still  alive,  a  lighted  candle  was 
placed  in  the  window  of  the  sick-room,  which,  the  moment  that 
the  king  had  expired,  was  to  be  extinguished,  as  a  signal  to  the 
equerries  to  prepare  the  carriages.  The  dauphin  and  dauphiness 
were  in  an  adjoining  room  awaiting  the  intelligence,  when,  at 
about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  a  sudden  trampling  of  feet 
was  heard,  and  Madame  de  Noailles  entered  the  apartment  to  en- 
treat them  to  advance  into  the  saloon  to  receive  the  homage  of 
the  princes  and  principal  officers  of  the  court,  who  were  wait- 
ing to  pay  their  respects  to  their  new  sovereigns.  They  came 
forward  arm-in-arm ;  and  in  tears,  in  which  sincere  sorrow  was 
mingled  with  not  unnatural  nervousness,  received  the  salutations 
of  the  courtiers,  and  immediately  afterward  left  Versailles  with 
all  the  family. 

Louis  XVI.  and  Marie  Antoinette  had  now  reached  the  pinnacle 
of  human  greatness,  as  sovereigns  of  one  of  the  noblest  empires  in 
the  world.  Yet  the  first  feelings  which  their  elevation  had  excited 
in  both,  and  especially  in  the  queen,  were  rather  those  of  dismay 


88  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

and  perplexity  than  of  exultation.  In  the  preceding  autumn, 
Mercy*  had  remarked  to  the  empress,  with  surprise  and  vexa- 
tion, that,  though  the  dauphiness  exhibited  singular  readiness  and 
acuteness  in  comprehending  political  questions,  she  was  very  un- 
willing, and,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  afraid  of  dealing  with  them, 
and  that  she  shrunk  from  the  thought  that  the  day  would  come 
when  she  must  possess  power  and  authority.  And  the  continu- 
ance of  this  feeling  is  visible  in  her  first  letter  to  her  mother,  some 
passages  of  which  show  a  sobriety  of  mind  under  such  a  change 
of  circumstances,  which,  almost  as  much  as  the  benevolence  which 
the  letter  also  displays,  augured  well  for  the  happiness  of  the  peo- 
ple over  whom  she  was  to  reign,  so  far  at  least  as  that  happiness 
depended  on  the  virtues  of  the  sovereign. 

"  Choisy,  May  14th. 

"  MY  DEAREST  MOTHER, — Mercy  will  have  informed  you  of  the 
circumstances  of  our  misfortune.  Happily  his  cruel  disease  left 
the  king  in  possession  of  his  senses  till  the  last  moment,  and  his 
end  was  very  edifying.  The  new  king  seems  to  have  the  affection 
of  his  people.  Two  days  before  the  death  of  his  grandfather,  he 
sent  two  hundred  thousandf  francs  to  the  poor,  which  has  produced 
a  great  effect.  Since  he  has  been  here,  he  has  been  working  un- 
ceasingly, answering  with  his  own  hand  the  letters  of  the  minis- 
ters, whom  as  yet  he  can  not  see,  and  many  others  likewise.  One 
thing  is  certain,  and  that  is  that  he  has  a  taste  for  economy,  and 
the  greatest  desire  possible  to  make  his  people  happy.  In  every 
thing  he  has  as  great  a  desire  to  be  rightly  instructed  as  he  has 
need  to  be.  I  trust  that  God  will  bless  his  good  intentions. 

"The  public  expected  great  changes  in  a  moment.  The  king 
has  limited  himself  to  sending  away  the  creaturej  to  a  convent, 
and  to  driving  from  the  court  every  thing  which  is  connected  with 
that  scandal.  The  king  even  owed  this  example  to  the  people  of 
Versailles,  who,  at  the  very  moment  of  his  grandfather's  death, 

*  Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa,  August  14th,  1773,  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  31. 

f  The  money  was  a  joint  gift  from  herself  as  well  as  from  him.  Great  dis- 
tress, arising  from  the  extraordinarily  high  price  of  bread,  was  at  this  time 
prevailing  in  Paris. 

\  The  term  most  commonly  used  by  Marie  Antoinette  in  her  letters  to  her 
mother  to  describe  Madame  du  Barn.  She  was  ordered  to  retire  to  the  Ab- 
bey of  Pont-aux-Dames,  near  Meaux.  Subsequently  she  was  allowed  to  return 
to  Luciennes,  a  villa  which  her  royal  lover  had  given  her. 


APPOINTMENTS  IN  HER  HOUSEHOLD.  89 

insulted  Madame  de  Mazarin,*  one  of  the  humblest  servants  of  the 
favorite.  I  am  earnestly  entreated  to  exhort  the  king  to  mercy 
toward  a  number  of  corrupt  souls  who  had  done  much  mischief  for 
many  years ;  and  I  am  strongly  inclined  to  comply  with  the  request. 
******  * 

9 

"A  messenger  has  just  arrived  to  forbid  my  going  to  see  my 
Aunt  Adelaide,  who  has  a  great  deal  of  fever.  They  are  afraid  of 
the  small-pox  for  her.  I  am  horrified,  and  can  not  bring  myself 
to  think  of  the  consequences.  It  is  a  terrible  thing  for  her  to  pay 
so  immediately  for  the  sacrifice  which  she  made. 

"  I  am  very  glad  that  Marshal  Lacy  was  pleased  with  me.  I 
confess,  ray  dear  mamma,  that  I  was  greatly  affected  when  he 
took  leave  of  me,  at  thinking  how  rarely  it  happens  to  me  to  see 
any  of  my  countrymen,  and  especially  of  those  who  have  the  hap- 
piness to  approach  you.  A  little  time  back  I  saw  Madame  de 
Marmier,  which  was  a  great  pleasure  to  me,  since  I  know  how 
highly  you  value  her. 

"The  king  has  allowed  me  myself  to  name  the  ladies  who  are 
to  have  places  in  my  household,  now  that  I  am  queen ;  and  I  have 
had  the  satisfaction  of  giving  the  Lorrainersf  a  proof  of  my  re- 
gard, in  taking  for  my  chief  almoner  the  Abbe  de  Sabran,  a  man 
of  excellent  character,  of  noble  birth,  and  already  named  for  the 
bishopric  about  to  be  established  at  Nancy. 

"Although  it  pleased  God  that  I  should  be  born  in  the  rank 
which  I  this  day  occupy,  still  I  can  not  forbear  admiring  the  boun- 
ty of  Providence  in  choosing  me,  the  youngest  of  your  daughters, 
for  the  noblest  kingdom  in  Europe.  I  feel  more  than  ever  what 
I  owe  to  the  tenderness  of  my  august  mother,  who  expended  such 
pains  and  labor  in  procuring  for  me  this  splendid  establishment. 
I  have  never  so  greatly  longed  to  throw  myself  at  her  feet,  to  em- 
brace her,  to  lay  open  my  whole  soul  to  her,  and  to  show  her  how 
entirely  it  is  filled  with  respect  and  tenderness  and  gratitude." 

It  is  impossible  to  read  these  glowing  words,  so  full  of  the  joy 
and  hope  of  youth,  and  breathing  a  confidence  of  happiness  ap- 

*  Madame  de  Mazarin  was  the  lady  who,  by  the  fulsomeness  of  her  servil- 
ity to  Madame  du  Barri,  provoked  Madame  du  Deffand  (herself  a  lady  not 
altogether  sang  reproche)  to  say  that  it  was  not  easy  to  carry  "  the  heroism  of 
baseness  and  absurdity  farther." 

f  Lorraine  had  become  a  French  province  a  few  years  before,  on  the  death 
of  Stanislaus  Leczinsky,  father  of  the  queen  of  Louis  XV. 


90  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

parently  so  well-founded,  since  it  was  built  on  a  resolution  to  use 
the  power  placed  in  the  writer's  hands  for  the  welfare  of  the  peo- 
ple over  whom  it  was  to  be  exerted,  without  reflecting  how  pain- 
ful a  contrast  to  the  hopes  now  expressed  is  presented  by  the 
reality  of  the  destiny  in  store  for  her  and  her  husband.  At  the 
moment  he  was  as  little  disturbed  by  forebodings  of  evil  as  his 
queen,  and  willingly  yielded  to  her  request  to  add  a  few  lines  with 
his  own  hand  to  the  empress,  that,  on  so  momentous  an  occasion 
as  his  accession  she  might  not  be  left  to  gather  his  feelings  solely 
from  her  report  of  them.  The  postscript  of  the  letter  is  accord- 
ingly their  joint  performance,  he  evidently  desiring  to  gratify  Ma- 
ria Teresa  by  praise  of  her  daughter ;  and  she,  while  pleased  at 
his  acquiescence,  not  concealing  her  amusement  at  the  clumsiness, 
or,  to  say  the  least,  the  rusticity,  of  some  of  his  expressions. 

P.S.  in  the  king's  hand :  "  I  am  very  glad,  my  dear  mamma, 
to  find  an  occasion  to  prove  to  you  my  tenderness  and  my  attach- 
ment. I  should  be  very  glad  to  have  your  advice  at  this  time, 
which  is  so  embarrassing.  I  should  be  enchanted  to  be  able  to 
please  you,  and  to  show  by  my  conduct  all  my  attachment  and  the 
gratitude  which  I  feel  for  your  kindness  in  giving  me  your  daugh- 
ter, with  whom  I  am  as  well  satisfied  as  possible." 

P.S.  by  the  queen :  "  The  king  would  not  let  my  letter  go 
without  adding  a  word  from  himself.  I  am  quite  aware  that  it 
would  not  have  been  too  much  for  him  to  do  to  write  an  entire 
letter.  But  I  must  beg  my  dear  mamma  to  excuse  him,  in  con- 
sideration of  the  mass  of  business  with  which  he  is  occupied,  and 
also  a  little  on  account  of  his  timidity  and  the  embarrassed  man- 
ner which  is  natural  to  him.  You  see,  my  dear  mamma,  by  his 
compliment  at  the  end,  that,  though  he  has  great  affection  for  me, 
he  does  not  spoil  me  by  insipid  flatteries." 

It  is  almost  equally  remarkable  that  the  empress  herself,  though 
thus  to  see  her  favorite  daughter  on  the  throne  of  France  had 
been  her  most  ardent  wish,  was  far  from  regarding  the  consum- 
mation of  her  desires  with  unalloyed  pleasure.  She  was  so  com- 
pletely a  politician  above  all  things,  that,  though  she  was  well 
aware  that  Louis  XV.  had  been  one  of  the  most  infamous  kings 
that  ever  dishonored  a  throne,  she  looked  upon  him  solely  as  an 
ally ;  described  him  to  her  daughter  as  "  that  good  and  tender 
prince ;"  declared  that  she  should  never  cease  to  regret  him,  and 
that  she  would  wear  mourning  for  him  all  the  rest  of  her  life. 
At  the  same  time,  she  did  not  conceal  from  herself  that  he  had 


LOUIS  INFLUENCED  BY  HIS  AUNTS.  91 

left  his  kingdom  in  a  most  deplorable  condition.  She  had,  as 
she  declared,  herself  experienced  how  heavy  is  the  burden  of  an 
empire ;  she  reflected  how  young  her  daughter  was ;  and  ex- 
pressed a  sad  fear  that  "  her  days  of  happiness  were  over."  "  She 
was  now  in  a  position  in  which  there  was  no  half-way  between 
complete  greatness  and  great  misery."*  The  best  hopes  for  her 
future  the  empress  saw  in  the  character  for  purity  and  kindness 
which  Marie  Antoinette  had  already  established,  and  in  the  esteem 
and  affection  of  the  people  which  those  qualities  had  won  for 
her ;  and  she  entreated  her,  taking  it  for  granted  that  in  advising 
her  she  was  advising  the  king  also,  to  be  prudent  and  cautious,  to 
avoid  making  any  sudden  changes,  and  above  all  things  to  main- 
tain the  alliance  between  the  two  countries,  and  to  listen  to  the 
experienced  and  faithful  advice  of  her  embassador. 

Maria  Teresa  was  mistaken  when  she  thought  that  her  daughter 
would  at  all  times  be  able  to  lead  her  husband.  Though  slow  in 
action,  Louis  was  not  deficient  in  perception.  On  many  subjects 
he  had  views  of  his  own,  which,  in  some  cases,  were  clear  and 
sound  enough,  and  to  which,  even  when  they  were  not  so,  he  ad- 
hered with  considerable  tenacity.  At  the  same  time,  though  he 
had  but  little  affection  for  his  aunts,  and  still  less  respect  for  their 
judgment,  he  had  been  so  long  accustomed  to  listen  to  their  ad- 
vice while  he  had  no  authority,  that  he  could  not  as  yet  wholly 
shake  off  all  feeling  of  deference  for  it,  and  their  influence  was 
exerted  with  most  mischievous  effect  in  the  first  week  of  his  reign. 
Indeed,  it  had  been  exhibited  even  before  the  reign  began,  though 
the  form  which  it  took  greatly  interfered  with  the  personal  com- 
fort of  the  young  sovereigns.  It  had  been  settled  that  the  king 
and  queen  should  go  by  themselves  to  La  Muette,  and  that  the 
rest  of  the  royal  family  should  remove  to  the  Trianon.  But  Ma- 
dame Adelaide  had  no  inclination  for  a  plan  which  would  sepa- 
rate her  from  her  nephew  at  a  moment  when  so  many  matters  of 
importance  would  come  before  her  for  decision.  At  the  last  mo- 
ment she  prevailed  upon  him  to  consent  that  the  whole  family 
should  go  to  Choisy  together ;  and  the  very  next  day  she  induced 
him  to  dismiss  his  ministers,  and  to  place  the  Comte  de  Maurepas 
at  the  head  of  the  Government,  though  Louis  himself  had  selected 
another  statesman  for  the  office,  M.  Machault,  who,  as  finance  min- 
ister twenty-five  years  before,  had  shown  both  ability  and  integ- 

*  Maria  Teresa  to  Marie  Antoinette,  May  18th,  and  to  Mercy  on  the  same 
day,  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  149. 


92  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

v 

rity,  and  who  bad  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the  king's  father, 
and  though  Maurepas  had  never  been  supposed  to  be  either  able 
or  honest,  and  might  well  have  been  regarded  as  superannuated, 
since  he  had  begun  his  official  life  under  Louis  XIV. 

With  the  change  in  the  position  of  Marie  Antoinette,  Mercy's 
position  had  also  been  changed,  and  likewise  his  view  of  the  line 
of  conduct  which  it  was  desirable  for  her  to  adopt.  Hitherto  he 
had  been  the  counselor  of  a  princess  who,  without  wary  walking, 
was  liable  every  moment  to  be  overwhelmed  by  the  intrigues  with 
which  she  was  surrounded ;  and  his  chief  object  had  been  to  en- 
able his  royal  pupil  to  escape  the  snares  and  dangers  which  en- 
compassed her.  Now,  as  far  as  his  duties  could  be  determined  by 
the  wish  of  the  empress,  in  which  her  daughter  fully  acquiesced, 
he  was  elevated  to  the  post  of  confidential  adviser  to  a  great  queen, 
who,  in  his  opinion,  was  inevitably  destined  to  be  the  real  ruler 
of  the  kingdom.  It  was  a  strange  position  for  so  experienced  a 
politician  as  the  empress  to  desire  for  him,  and  for  so  prudent  a 
statesman  to  accept.  Yet,  anomalous  as  it  was,  and  dangerous  as 
it  would  usually  be  for  a  foreign  embassador  to  interfere  in  the 
internal  politics  of  the  kingdom  to  which  he  is  sent,  his  corre- 
spondence bears  ample  testimony  to  both  his  sagacity  and  his 
disinterestedness.  And  it  would  have  been  well  for  both  his  roy- 
al pupil  and  her  adopted  country  had  his  advice  more  frequently 
and  more  steadily  guided  the  course  of  both. 

On  one  point  of  primary  importance  his  advice  to  the  queen 
differed  from  that  which  he  had  been  wont  to  give  to  the  dau- 
phiness.  While  dauphiness,  he  had  urged  her  to  abstain  from 
any  interference  in  public  affairs.  He  now,  on  the  contrary,  de- 
sired to  see  her  take  an  active  part  in  them,  explaining  to  the  em- 
press that  the  reason  which  actuated  him  was  the  character  of 
the  new  king,  who,  as  he  regarded  him,  was  never  likely  to  exert 
the  authority  which  belonged  to  him  with  independence  or  stead- 
iness, but  was  certain  to  be  led  by  some  one  or  other,  while  it 
would  in  the  highest  degree  endanger  the  maintenance  of  the  al- 
liance between  France  and  Austria  (which,  coinciding  with  the 
judgment  of  his  imperial  mistress,  he  regarded  as  the  most  im- 
portant of  all  political  objects),  and  be  most  injurious  to  the  wel- 
fare of  France  and  to  her  own  personal  comfort,  if  that  leader 
should  be  any  one  but  the  queen.* 

*  See  his  letter  of  8th  May  to  Maria  Teresa.     "  II  faut  que  pour  la  suite 


FIRST  MEASURES  OF  THE  NEW  REIGN.  93 

But,  as  we  have  seen,  he  could  not  prevent  Louis  from  yielding 
at  times  to  other  influences.  Taking  the  same  view  of  the  situa- 
tion as  the  empress,  if  indeed  Maria  Teresa  had  not  adopted  it 
from  him,  he  had  urged  Marie  Antoinette  to  prevent  any  change 
in  the  ministry  being  made  at  first,  in  which  it  is  highly  probable 
that  she  did  not  coincide  with  him,  though  equally  likely  that 
Maurepas  was  not  the  minister  whom  she  would  have  preferred. 
Another  piece  of  advice  which  he  gave  was,  however,  taken,  and 
with  the  happiest  effect.  The  poorer  classes  in  Paris  and  its 
neighborhood  were  suffering  from  a  scarcity  which  almost  amount- 
ed to  a  famine ;  and,  before  the  death  of  Louis  XV.,  Mercy  had 
recommended  that  the  first  measure  of  the  new  reign  should  be 
one  which  should  lower  the  price  of  bread.  That  counsel  was 
too  entirely  in  harmony  with  the  active  benevolence  of  the  new 
monarch  to  be  neglected.  The  necessary  edicts  were  issued.  In 
twenty-four  hours  the  price  of  the  loaf  was  reduced  by  two-fifths, 
and  Mercy  had  the  satisfaction  of  hearing  the  relief  generally  at- 
tributed to  the  influence  of  the  new  queen. 

It  can  not  be  supposed  that  the  king  knew  either  the  opinion 
which  the  empress  and  the  embassador  had  formed  of  his  capacity 
and  disposition,  or  the  advice  which  they  had  consequently  given 
to  the  queen.  But  he  very  early  began  to  show  that  he  himself 
also  appreciated  his  wife's  quickness  of  intelligence  and  correct- 
ness of  judgment.  Maria  Teresa,  in  pressing  on  her  daughter  her 
opinion  of  the  general  character  of  the  policy  which  the  interest 
of  France  required,  explained  her  view  of  her  daughter's  position 
to  be  that  she  was  "the  friend  and  confidante  of  the  king."* 
And  June  had  hardly  arrived  before  he  began  to  discuss  all  his 
plans  and  difficulties  with  her;  while  she  spared  his  pride  and 
won  his  further  confidence  by  avoiding  all  appearance  of  press- 
ing for  it,  as  if  her  advice  were  necessary  to  him,  but  at  the  same 
time  showing  with  what  satisfaction  she  received  it.  To  those 
who  solicited  her  intervention,  her  language  was  most  carefully 
guarded.  "  She  did  not,"  she  said,  "  interfere  in  any  affair  of 

de  son  bonheur,  elle  commence  a  s'emparer  de  I'autorit6  que  M.  le  Dauphin 
n'exercera  jamais  que  d'une  fa9on  convenable,  et . . . .  ce  serait  du  dernier 
danger  et  pour  1'etat  et  pour  le  systeme  g6n6ral  que  qui  que  ce  soit  s'emparat 
de  M.  le  Dauphin  et  qu'il  fut  conduit  par  autre  que  par  Madame  la  Dau- 
phine." — ARNETH,  ii.,  p.  137. 

*  "  Je  parle  a  1'amie,  a  la  confidents  du  roi." — Maria.  Teresa  to  Marie  Antoi- 
nette, May  30th,  1770,  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  155. 


94  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

state ;  she  only  coincided  in  all  the  wishes  and  intentions  of  the 
king." 

There  were,  however,  matters  which  were  strictly  and  exclusive- 
ly within  her  own  province;  and  in  them  she  at  once  began  to 
exert  her  authority  most  beneficially.  Her  first  desire  was  to 
purify  the  court  where  licentiousness  in  either  sex  had  long  been 
the  surest  road  to  royal  favor.  She  began  by  making  a  regula- 
tion that  she  would  receive  no  lady  who  was  separated  from  her 
husband  ;  and  she  abolished  a  senseless  and  inexplicable  rule  of 
etiquette  which  had  hitherto  prohibited  the  queen  and  princesses 
from  dining  or  supping  in  company  with  their  husbands.*  Such 
an  exclusion  from  the  king's  table  of  those  who  were  its  most 
natural  and  becoming  ornaments  had  notoriously  facilitated  and 
augmented  the  disorders  of  the  last  reign ;  and  it  was  obvious 
that  its  maintenance  must  at  least  have  a  tendency  to  lead  to  a 
repetition  of  the  old  irregularities.  Fortunately,  the  king  was  as 
little  inclined  to  approve  of  it  as  the  queen.  All  his  tastes  were 
domestic,  and  he  gladly  assented  to  her  proposal  to  abolish  the 
custom.  Throughout  the  reign,  at  all  ordinary  meals,  at  his  sup- 
pers when  he  came  in  late  from  hunting,  when  he  had  perhaps 
invited  some  of  his  fellow-sportsmen  to  share  his  repast,  and  at 
State  banquets,  Marie  Antoinette  took  her  seat  at  his  side,  not 
only  adding  grace  and  liveliness  to  the  entertainment,  but  effect- 
ually preventing  license,  and  even  the  suspicion  of  scandal ;  and, 
as  she  desired  that  her  household  as  well  as  her  family  should  set 
an  example  of  regularity  and  propriety  to  the  nation,  she  exer- 
cised a  careful  superintendence  over  the  behavior  of  those  who 
had  hitherto  been  among  the  least-considered  members  of  the  royal 
establishment.  Even  the  king's  confessor  had  thought  the  morals 
of  the  royal  pages  either  beneath  his  notice  or  beyond  his  control ; 
but  Marie  Antoinette  took  a  higher  view  of  her  duties.  She  con- 
sidered her  pagesf  as  placed  under  her  charge,  and  herself  as 
bound  to  extend  what  one  of  themselves  calls  a  maternal  care  and 
kindness  to  them,  restraining  as  far  as  she  could,  and  when  she 

*  "  Jusqu'a  present  1'etiquette  de  cette  cour  a  toujours  interdit  aux  reines 
et  princesses  royales  de  manger  avec  des  homines." — Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa, 
June  7th,  1774,  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  164. 

f  "  Elle  me  traite,  a  mon  arrivee,  comme  tous  les  jeunes  gens  qui  compo- 
saient  ses  pages,  qu'elle  comblait  de  bont6s,  en  leur  montrant  une  bienveillance 
pleine  de  dignite,  mais  qu'on  pouvait  aussi  appeler  maternelle." — Maria-The. 
rese,  Memoir -es  de  Tilly,  L,  p.  25. 


UNWILLINGNESS  TO  BURDEN  THE  PEOPLE.  95 

could  not  restrain,  reproving  their  boyish  excesses,  softening  their 
hearts  and  winning  their  affections  by  the  gentle  dignity  of  her 
admonitions,  and  by  the  condescending  and  hopeful  indulgence 
with  which  she  accepted  their  expressions  of  contrition  and  their 
promises  of  amendment.  In  one  matter,  too,  which,  if  not  exact- 
ly political,  was  at  all  events  of  public  interest,  she  acted  in  a 
manner  of  which  none  of  her  predecessors  had  set  an  example. 
By  a  custom  of  immemorial  antiquity,  at  the  accession  of  a  new 
sovereign,  a  tax  had  been  levied  on  the  whole  kingdom  as  an  of- 
fering to  the  king,  known  as  "  the  gift  of  the  happy  accession  ;"* 
and  when  there  was  a  queen,  a  similar  tax  was  imposed  upon  the 
Parisians,  to  provide  what  was  called  "  the  girdle  of  the  queen."f 
It  has  already  been  mentioned  that  the  distress  which  existed 
in  Paris  at  this  time  was  so  severe  that,  just  before  the  death  of 
the  late  king,  Louis  and  Marie  Antoinette  had  relieved  it  by  a 
munificent  gift  from  their  private  purse;  and  to  lay  additional 
burdens  on  the  people  at  such  a  time  was  not  only  repugnant  to 
their  feelings,  but  seemed  especially  inconsistent  with  their  recent 
generosity.  Accordingly,  the  very  first  edict  of  the  new  reign  an- 
nounced that  neither  tax  would  be  imposed.  The  people  felt  the 
kindness  which  dictated  such  a  relief  more  than  even  the  relief  it- 
self, and  repaid  it  with  expressions  of  gratitude  such  as  no  French 
sovereign  had  heard  for  above  a  century ;  but  Marie  Antoinette, 
with  the  humility  natural  to  her  on  such  subjects,  made  light  of 
her  own  share  in  the  act  of  benevolence,  turning  off  the  compli- 
ments which  were  paid  to  her  with  a  playful  jest,  that  it  was  im- 
possible for  a  queen  to  aftix  a  purse  to  her  girdle,  now  that  gir- 
dles had  gone  out  of  fashion.J 

On  another  subject,  also,  not  wholly  unconnected  with  politics, 
since  the  nobleman  concerned  had  once  been  the  chief  minister, 
but  in  which  Marie  Antoinette's  interest  was  personal,  she  broke 
through  her  usual  rule  of  not  beginning  the  discussion  with  the 
king,  and  requested  the  recall  from  banishment  of  the  Due  de 
Choiseul.  An  unfounded  prejudice,  based  upon  calumnies  set  on 
foot  by  the  cabal  of  Madame  du  Barri,  had  envenomed  Louis's 

*  Le  don,  ou  le  droit,  de  joyeux  avenement. 

f  La  ceinture  de  la  reine.  It  consisted  of  three  pence  (deniers)  on  each  hogs- 
head of  wine  imported  into  the  city,  and  was  levied  every  three  years  in  the 
capital. — ARNETH,  ii.,  p.  179. 

\  The  title  "  ceinture  de  la  reine  "  had  been  given  to  it  because  in  the  old 
times  queens  and  all  other  ladies  had  carried  their  purses  at  their  girdles. 


96  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

mind  against  the  duke.  He  had  been  led  to  suspect  that  his 
own  father,  the  late  dauphin,  had  been  poisoned,  and  that  Choi- 
seul  had  been  accessory  to  the  crime.  There  was  nothing  more 
certain  than  that  the  dauphin's  death  had  been  natural;  but  a 
dislike  of  the  accused  duke  lingered  in  the  king's  mind,  and  he 
eluded  compliance  with  his  wife's  request  till  she  put  it  on  entire- 
ly personal  grounds,  by  declaring  it  to  be  humiliating  to  herself 
that  one  to  whom  she  was  under  the  deepest  obligations  as  the 
negotiator  of  her  own  happy  marriage  should  be  under  the  king's 
displeasure  without  her  being  able  to  procure  his  pardon.  Louis 
felt  the  force  of  the  appeal  thus  made  to  him.  "  If  she  used 
that  argument,  he  could  deny  her  nothing,'1  and  the  duke's  sen- 
tence was  remitted,  though  his  royal  patroness  was  unable  to  pro- 
cure his  re-admission  to  office.  Nor  did  Maria  Teresa  regret  that 
she  failed  in  that  object ;  since  she  feared  his  restless  character, 
and  felt  the  alliance  between  the  two  countries  safer  in  the  hands 
of  the  new  foreign  secretary,  the  Count  de  Vergennes. 


INTRIGUES  OF  THE  COMTE  DE  PROVENCE.  97 


CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Comte  de  Provence  intrigues  against  the  Queen. — The  King  gives  her  the 
Little  Trianon. — She  lays  out  an  English  Garden. — Maria  Teresa  cautions 
her  against  Expense. — The  King  and  Queen  abolish  some  of  the  Old  Forms. 
— The  Queen  endeavors  to  establish  Friendships  with  some  of  her  Younger 
Ladies. — They  abuse  her  Favor. — Her  Eagerness  for  Amusement. — Louis 
enters  into  her  Views. — Etiquette  is  abridged. — Private  Parties  at  Choisy. 
— Supper  Parties. — Opposition  of  the  Princesses. — Some  of  the  Courtiers 
are  dissatisfied  at  the  Relaxation  of  Etiquette. — Marie  Antoinette  is  ac- 
cused of  Austrian  Preferences. 

HER  accession  to  the  throne,  however,  had  not  entirely  deliv- 
ered Marie  Antoinette  from  intrigues.  It  had  only  changed  their 
direction  and  object,  and  also  the  persons  of  the  intriguers.  Her 
chief  enemy  now  was  the  prince  who  ought  to  have  been  her  best 
friend,  the  next  brother  of  her  husband,  the  Comte  de  Provence. 
Among  the  papers  of  Louis  XV.  the  king  had  found  proofs,  in 
letters  from  both  count  and  countess,  that  they  had  both  been 
actively  employed  in  trying  to  make  mischief,  and  to  poison  the 
mind  of  their  grandfather  against  the  dauphiness.  They  became 
still  more  busy  now,  since  each  day  seemed  to  diminish  the  prob- 
ability of  Marie  Antoinette  becoming  a  mother;  while,  if  she 
should  leave  no  children,  the  Comte  de  Provence  would  be  heir  to 
the  throne.  He  scarcely  made  any  secret  that  he  was  already 
contemplating  the  probability  of  his  succession ;  and,  as  there 
were  not  wanting  courtiers  to  speculate  also  on  the  chance,  it  soon 
became  known  that  there  was  no  such  sure  road  to  the  favor  of 
monsieur*  as  that  of  disparaging  and  vilifying  the  queen.  There 
might  have  been  some  safety  for  her  in  being  put  on  her  guard 
against  her  enemy ;  and  the  king  himself,  who  called  his  brother 
Tartuffe,  did,  in  consequence  of  his  discovery,  use  great  caution 
and  circumspection  in  his  behavior  toward  him ;  but  Marie  An- 
toinette was  of  a  temper  as  singularly  forgiving  as  it  was  open : 
she  could  not  bear  to  regard  with  suspicion  even  those  of  whose 

*  The  title  by  which  the  count  was  usually  known ;  that  of  the  countess 
was  madame. 

7 


98  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE.  . 

unfriendliness  and  treachery  she  had  had  proofs ;  and  after  a  few 
days  she  resumed  her  old  familiarity  with  the  pair,  as  if  she  had 
no  reason  to  distrust  them,  slighting  on  this  subject  the  remon- 
strances of  Mercy,  who  pointed  out  to  her  in  vain  that  she  was 
putting  weapons  into  their  hands  which  they  would  be  sure  to 
turn  against  herself. 

At  this  moment  she  was  especially  happy  with  a  new  pastime. 
Amidst  the  stately  halls  of  Versailles  she  had  often  longed  for  a 
villa  on  a  smaller  scale,  which  she  might  call  her  own ;  and  the 
wish  was  now  gratified.  On  one  side  of  the  park  of  Versailles, 
and  about  a  mile  from  the  palace,  the  late  kiag  had  built  an  ex- 
quisite little  pavilion  for  his  mistress,  which  was  known  as  the 
Little  Trianon.  There  had  been  a  building  of  one  kind  or  an- 
other on  the  same  spot  for  above  a  century.  Louis  XIV.  had 
erected  there  a  cottage  of  porcelain  for  his  imperious  favorite,  Ma- 
dame de  Montespan ;  and  it  was  the  more  sumptuous  palace  with 
which,  after  her  death,  he  replaced  it,  that  gave  rise  to  the  strange 
quarrel  between  the  haughty  monarch  and  his  equally  haughty 
minister,  Louvois,  of  which  St.  Simon  has  left  us  so  curious  an  ac- 
count.* This  had  been  allowed  to  fall  into  a  state  of  decay ; 
and  a  few  years  before  his  death,  Louis  XV.  had  pulled  down 
what  remained  of  it,  and  had  built  a  third  on  its  foundations, 
which  had  been  the  most  favorite  abode  of  Madame  du  Barri  dur- 
ing his  life,  but  which  was  now  rendered  vacant  by  her  dismissal. 
The  house  was  decorated  with  an  exquisite  delicacy  of  taste,  in 
which  Louis  XV.  had  far  surpassed  his  predecessor ;  but  the  chief 
charm  of  the  place  was  generally  accounted  to  be  the  garden, 
which  had  been  laid  out  by  Le  Notre,  an  artist,  whose  original 
genius  as  a  landscape  gardener  was  regarded  by  many  of  his  con- 
temporaries as  greatly  superior  to  his  more  technical  skill  as  an 
architect.f 

A  few  hundred  yards  off  was  another  palace,  the  Great  Tria- 
non ;  but  it  was  the  Little  Trianon  which  caught  the  queen's 
fancy ;  and,  on  her  expression  of  a  wish  to  have  it  for  her  own, 
the  king  at  once  made  it  over  to  her ;  and,  pleased  with  her  new 
toy,  Marie  Antoinette,  still  a  girl  in  her  impulsive  eagerness  for  a 
fresh  pleasure  (she  was  not  yet  nineteen),  began  to  busy  herself 
with  remodeling  the  pleasure-grounds  with  which  it  was  sur- 

*  St.  Simon,  1709.,  cb.  VA,  and  J715,  ch.  L,  vols.  vii.  and  xiiL,  ed.  1829. 
f  Ibid.,  1700,  ch.  xu.,  vol.  ii,  p.  469. 


SHE  LAYS  OUT  AN  ENGLISH  GARDEN.  99 

rounded.  Before  the  time  of  Le  Notre,  the  finest  gardens  in  the 
country  had  been  laid  out  on  what  was  called  the  Italian  plan. 
He  was  too  good  a  patriot  to  copy  the  foreigners  :  he  drove  out 
the  Italians,  and  introduced  a  new  arrangement,  known  as  the 
French  style,  which  was,  in  fact,  but  an  imitation  of  the  stiff,  form- 
al Dutch  mode.  But  of  late  the  English  gardeners  had  estab- 
lished that  supremacy  in  the  art  which  they  have  ever  since  main- 
tained ;  and  the  present  aim  of  every  fashionable  horticulturist 
in  France  was  to  copy  the  effects  produced  on  the  banks  of  the 
Thames  by  Wise  and  Browne. 

Marie  Antoinette  fell  in  with  the  prevailing  taste.  She  im- 
ported English  drawings  and  hired  English  gardeners.  She 
visited  in  person  the  Count  de  Caraman,  and  one  or  two  other 
nobles,  who  had  already  done  something  by  their  example  to  in- 
oculate the  Parisians  with  the  new  fashion.  And  presently  lawns 
and  shrubberies,  winding  walks  and  irregularly  shaped  flower-beds, 
supplanted  the  stately  uniformity  of  terraces,  alleys  converging 
on  central  fountains,  or  on  alcoves  as  solid  and  stiff  as  the  palace 
itself,  and  trees  cut  into  all  kinds  of  fantastic  shapes,  which  had 
previously  been  regarded  as  the  masterpieces  of  the  gardeners'  in- 
vention. Her  happiness  was  at  its  height  when,  at  the  end  of  a 
few  months,  all  was  completed  to  her  liking,  and  she  could  invite 
her  husband  to  an  entertainment  in  a  retreat  which  was  wholly 
her  own,  and  the  chief  beauties  of  which  were  her  own  work. 

As  yet,  therefore,  all  was  happiness,  and  prospect  of  happiness. 
Even  Maria  Teresa,  whose  unceasing  anxiety  for  her  daughter 
often  induced  her  to  see  the  worst  side  of  things,  was  rendered 
for  a  moment  almost  playful  by  the  reports  which  reached  Vien- 
na of  the  universal  popularity  of  "Louis  XVI.  and  his  little 
queen !"  "  She  blushed,"  she  said,  "  to  think  that  in  thirty- 
three  years  of  her  reign  she  had  not  done  as  much  as  Louis  had 
done  in  thirty-three  days."*  But  she  still  warned  her  daughter 
that  every  thing  depended  on  keeping  up  the  happy  impression 
already  made;  that  much  still  remained  to  be  done.  And  the 
queen's  answer  showed  that  her  new  authority  had  brought  with 
it  some  cares.  "  It  is  true,"  she  writes,  "  that  the  praises  of  the 
king  resound  everywhere.  He  deserves  it  we'll  by  the  uprightness 
of  his  heart,  and  the  desire  which  he  has  to  act  rightly  ;  but  this 
French  enthusiasm  disquiets  me  for  the  future.  The  little  that  I 

*  Arnetb,  u.,  p.  206. 


100  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

understand  of  business  shows  me  that  some  matters  are  full  of 
difficulty  and  embarrassment.  All  agree  that  the  late  king  has  left 
his  affairs  in  a  very  bad  state.  Men's  minds  are  divided ;  and  it 
will  be  impossible  to  please  all  the  world  in  a  country  where  the 
vivacity  of  the  people  wants  every  thing  to  be  done  in  a  moment. 
My  dear  mamma  is  quite  right  when  she  says  we  must  lay  down 
principles,  and  not  depart  from  them.  The  king  will  not  have 
the  same  weakness  as  his  grandfather.  I  hope  that  he  will  have 
no  favorites ;  but  I  am  afraid  that  he  is  too  mild  and  too  easy. 
You  may  depend  upon  it  that  I  will  not  draw  the  king  into  any 
great  expenses."  (The  empress  had  expressed  a  fear  lest  the 
Trianon  might  prove  a  cause  of  extravagance.)  "  On  the  contra- 
ry, I,  of  my  own  accord,  have  refused  to  make  demands  on  him 
for  money  which  some  have  recommended  me  to  make." 

Some  relaxations,  too,  of  the  formality  which  had  previously 
been  maintained  between  the  sovereign  and  the  subordinate  mem- 
bers of  the  royal  family,  and  especially  an  order  of  the  king  that 
his  brothers  and  sisters  were  not  in  private  intercourse  to  address 
him  as  his  majesty,  had  grated  on  the  empress's  sense  of  the 
distance  always  to  be  preserved  between  a  monarch  and  the  very 
highest  of  his  subjects.  And  she  had  complained  that  reports 
had  reached  her  that  "  there  was  no  distinction  between  the 
queen  and  the  other  princesses ;  and  that  the  familiarity  subsist- 
ing in  the  court  was  extreme."  But  Marie  Antoinette  replied,  in 
defense  of  the  king  and  herself,  that  there  was  "  great  exagger- 
ation in  these  reports,  as  indeed  there  was  about  every  thing  that 
went  on  at  the  court ;  that  the  familiarity  spoken  of  was  seen  but 
by  very  few.  It  is  not  for  me,"  she  said,  "  to  judge ;  but  it  seems. 
to  me  that  what  exists  among  us  is  only  the  air  of  kindly  affec- 
tion and  gayety  which  is  suitable  to  our  age.  It  is  true  that  the 
Count  d'Artois "  (who  had  been  the  special  subject  of  some  of 
the  empress's  unfavorable  comments)  "  is  very  lively  and  very 
giddy,  but  I  can  always  keep  him  in  order.  As  for  my  aunts,  no 
one  can  any  longer  say  that  they  lead  me ;  and  as  for  monsieur 
and  madame,  I  am  very  far  from  placing  entire  confidence  in  them. 

"I  must  confess  that  I  am  fond  of  amusement,  and  am  not 
very  greatly  inclined  to  grave  subjects.  I  hope,  however,  to  im- 
prove by  degrees ;  and,  without  ever  mixing  myself  up  in  in- 
trigues, to  qualify  myself  gradually  to  be  of  service  to  the  king 
when  he  makes  me  his  confidante,  since  he  treats  me  at  all  times 
with  the  most  perfect  affection." 


HER  DESIRE  FOR  PRIVATE  FRIENDSHIPS.  101 

Her  reflections  on  the  impulsiveness  and  impatience  of  the 
French  character,  and  of  the  difficulties  which  those  qualities 
placed  in  the  path  of  their  rulers,  justify  the  praises  which  Mer- 
cy had  lavished  on  her  sagacity,  for  it  is  evident  that  to  them  the 
chief  troubles  of  her  later  years  may  be  clearly  traced.  And  it 
is  difficult  to  avoid  agreeing  with  her  rather  than  with  her  moth- 
er, and  thinking  the  most  entire  freedom  of  intercourse  between 
the  king  and  his  nearest  relations  as  desirable  as  it  was  natural. 
Royalty  is,  as  the  empress  herself  described  it,  a  burden  sufficient- 
ly heavy,  without  its  weight  being  augmented  by  observances  and 
restrictions  which  would  leave  the  rulers  without  a  single  friend 
even  among  the  members  of  their  own  family.  And  probably 
the  empress  herself  might  have  seen  less  reason  for  her  admoni- 
tions on  the  subject,  had  it  not  been  for  the  circumstance,  which 
was  no  doubt  unfortunate,  that  the  royal  family  at  this  time  con- 
tained no  member  of  a  graver  age  and  a  settled  respectability  of 
character  who  might,  by  his  example,  have  tempered  the  exuber- 
ance natural  to  the  extreme  youth  of  the  sovereigns  and  their 
brothers. 

Not  that  Marie  Antoinette  was  content  to  limit  the  number  of 
those  whom  she  admitted  to  familiarity  to  her  husband's  kinsmen 
and  kinswomen.  Still  fretting  in  secret  over  the  want  of  any 
object  on  whom  to  lavish  a  mother's  tenderness,  she  sought  for 
friendship  as  a  substitute,  shutting  her  eyes  to  the  fact  that  per- 
sons in  her  rank,  as  having  no  equals,  can  have  no  friends,  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word.  Nor,  had  such  a  thing  been  possible  any- 
where, was  France  the  country  in  which  to  find  it.  There  disin- 
terestedness and  integrity  had  long  been  banished  from  her  own 
sex  almost  as  completely  as  from  the  other;  and  most  of  those 
whom  she  took  into  favor  made  it  their  first  object  to  render  that 
favor  profitable  to  themselves.  If  she  professed  in  their  society 
to  forget  for  a  few  hours  that  she  was  queen,  they  never  forgot  it ; 
they  never  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  she  could  confer  places  and 
pensions,  and  they  often  discarded  moderation  and  decency  in 
the  extravagance  of  their  solicitations ;  while  she  frequently,  with 
an  overamiable  facility,  surrendering  her  own  judgment  to  their 
importunities,  not  only  granted  their  requests,  but  at  times  even 
adopted  their  prejudices,  and  yielded  herself  as  an  instrument  to 
gratify  their  antipathies  or  resentments. 

And  the  same  feeling  of  vacancy  in  her  heart,  of  which  she  was 
ever  painfully  conscious,  produced  in  her  also  a  constant  restless- 


102  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

ness,  and  a  craving  for  excitement  which  exhibited  itself  in  an  in- 
satiable appetite  for  amusement  (as  she  confessed  to  her  mother), 
and  led  her  to  seek  distraction  even  in  pastimes  for  which  natu- 
rally she  had  but  little  inclination.  In  these  respects  it  can  not 
be  said  that,  during  the  first  years  of  her  reign,  she  was  as  uni- 
formly prudent  as  she  had  been  while  dauphiness.  The  restraint 
in  which  she  had  lived  for  those  four  years  had  not  been  unwhole- 
some for  one  so  young ;  but  it  had  no  doubt  been  irksome  to  her. 
And  the  feeling  of  complete  liberty  and  independence  which  had 
succeeded  it  had,  by  a  sort  of  natural  reaction,  sharpened  the 
energy  with  which  she  now  pursued  her  various  diversions.  It 
is  possible,  too,  that  the  zest  with  which  she  indulged  herself 
may  have  derived  additional  keenness  from  the  knowledge  that 
her  ill-wishers  found  in  it  pretext  for  misconstruction  and  cal- 
umny ;  and  that,  being  conscious  of  entire  purity  in  thought, 
word,  and  deed,  she  looked  on  it  as  due  to  her  own  character  to 
show  that  she  set  all  such  detraction  and  detractors  at  defiance. 
To  all  cavilers,  as  also  to  her  mother,  whose  uneasiness  was  fre- 
quently aroused  by  gossip  which  reached  Vienna  from  Paris,  her 
invariable  reply  was  that  her  way  of  life  had  the  king  her  hus- 
band's entire  approbation.  And  while  he  felt  a  conjugal  satis- 
faction in  the  contemplation  of  his  queen's  attractions  and  graces, 
the  qualities  in  which,  as  he  was  well  aware,  he  himself  was  most 
deficient,  Louis  might  well  also  cherish  the  most  absolute  reliance 
on  her  unswerving  rectitude,  knowing  the  pride  with  which  she 
was  wont  to  refer  to  her  mother's  example,  and  to  boast  that  the 
lesson  which,  above  all  others,  she  had  learned  from  it  was  that  to 
princes  of  her  birth  and  rank  wickedness  and  baseness  were  un- 
pardonable. 

Indeed,  many  of  the  amusements  Louis  not  only  approved,  but 
shared  with  her,  while  she  associated  herself  with  those  in  which 
he  delighted,  as  far  as  she  could,  joining  his  hunting  parties  twice 
a  week,  either  on  horseback  or  in  her  carriage,  and  at  all  times  ex- 
hibiting a  pattern  of  domestic  union  of  which  the  whole  previous 
history  of  the  nation  afforded  no  similar  example.  The  citizens 
of  Paris  could  hardly  believe  their  eyes  when  they  saw  their  king 
and  queen  walk  arm-in-arm  along  the  boulevards ;  and  the  court- 
iers received  a  lesson,  if  they  had  been  disposed  to  profit  by  it, 
when  on  each  Sunday  morning  they  saw  the  royal  pair  repair  to 
the  parish  church  for  divine  service,  the  day  being  closed  by  their 
public  supper  in  the  queen's  apartment. 


COURT  SUPPER  PARTIES.  103 

And  this  appearance  of  domestic  felicity  was  augmented  by  the 
introduction  of  what  may  be  called  private  parties,  with  which,  at 
the  queen's  instigation,  Louis  consented  to  vary  the  cold  formality 
of  the  ordinary  entertainments  of  the  court.  In  the  autumn  they 
followed  the  example  of  Louis  XV.  by  exchanging  for  a  few 
weeks  the  grandeur  of  Versailles  for  the  comparative  quiet  of 
some  of  their  smaller  palaces;  and,  while  they  were  at  Choisy, 
they  issued  invitations  once  or  twice  a  week  to  several  of  the  Pa- 
risian ladies  to  come  out  and  spend  the  day  at  the  palace,  when, 
as  the  principal  officers  of  the  household  were  not  on  duty,  they 
themselves  did  the  honors  to  their  guests,  the  queen  conversing 
with  every  one  with  her  habitual  graciousness,  while  the  king  also 
threw  off  his  ordinary  reserve,  and  seemed  to  encer  into  the  pleas- 
ures of  the  day  with  a  gayety  and  cordiality  which  surprised  the 
party,  and  which,  from  the  contrast  that  it  presented  to  his  man- 
ner when  he  was  by  himself,  was  very  generally  attributed  to  the 
influence  of  the  queen's  example. 

And  these  quiet  festivities  were  so  much  to  his  taste  that  after- 
ward, when  the  court  moved  to  Fontainebleau,  and  when  they  set- 
tled at  Versailles  for  the  winter,  he  cheerfully  agreed  to  a  pro- 
posal of  Marie  Antoinette  to  have  a  weekly  supper  party ;  adopt- 
ing also  another  suggestion  of  hers  which  was  indispensable  to 
render  such  reunions  agreeable,  or  even,  it  may  be  said,  practica- 
ble. At  her  request  he  abolished  the  ridiculous  rule  which,  under 
the  last  two  kings,  had  forbidden  gentlemen  to  be  admitted  to  sit 
at  table  with  any  princess  of  the  royal  family.  But  natural  as  the 
idea  seemed,  it  was  not  carried  out  without  opposition  on  the  part 
of  Madame  Adelaide  and  her  sisters,  who  remonstrated  against  it 
as  an  infraction  of  all  the  old  observances  of  the  court,  till  it  be- 
came a  contest  for  superiority  between  the  queen  and  themselves. 
Marie  Antoinette  took  counsel  with  Mercy,  and,  by  his  advice, 
pointed  out  to  her  husband  that  to  abandon  the  plan  after  it  had 
been  announced,  in  submission  to  an  opposition  which  the  prin- 
cesses had  no  right  to  make,  would  be  to  humiliate  her  in  the  eyes 
of  the  whole  court.  Louis  had  not  yet  shaken  off  all  fear  of  his 
aunts ;  but  they  were  luckily  absent,  so  he  yielded  to  the  influence 
which  was  nearest.  The  suppers  took  place.  He  and  the  queen 
themselves  made  out  the  lists  of  the  guests  to  be  invited,  the  men 
being  named  by  him,  and  the  ladies  being  selected  by  the  queen. 
They  were  a  great  success ;  and,  as  the  history  of  the  affair  be- 
came known,  the  court  and  the  Parisians  generally  rejoiced  in  the 


104  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

queen's  triumph,  and  were  grateful  to  her  for  this  as  for  every 
other  innovation  which  had  a  tendency  to  break  down  the  haugh- 
ty barrier  which,  during  the  last  two  reigns,  had  been  established 
between  the  sovereign  and  his  subjects.  Nor  were  these  pleasant 
informal  parties  the  only  instances  in  which  great  inroads  were 
made  on  the  old  etiquette.  The  Comte  de  Mirabeau,  a  man  fatal- 
ly connected  in  subsequent  years  with  some  of  the  most  terrible 
of  the  insults  which  were  offered  to  the  royal  family,  about  this 
time  described  etiquette  as  a  system  invented  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  blunting  the  capacity  of  the  French  princes,  and  fixing 
them  in  a  position  of  complete  dependence.  And  Marie  Antoi- 
nette seems  to  have  regarded  it  with  similar  eyes ;  her  dislike  of 
it  being  quickened  by  the  expectations  which  its  partisans  and 
champions  entertained  that  her  every  movement  was  to  be  regu- 
lated by  it.  And  its  requirements  were  sufficiently  burdensome 
to  tax  a  far  better-trained  patience  than  was  natural  to  one  who 
though  a  queen,  was  not  yet  nineteen.  Not  only  was  no  guest  of 
the  male  sex,  except  the  king,  allowed  to  sit  at  table  with  her,  but 
no  man-servant,  no  male  officer  of  her  household,  might  be  present 
when  the  king  and  she  dined  together,  as  indeed  usually  happen- 
ed ;  even  his  presence  could  not  sanction  the  introduction  of  any 
other  man.  The  lady  of  honor,  on  her  knees,  though  in  full  dress, 
presented  him  the  napkin  to  wipe  his  fingers,  and  filled  his  glass ; 
ladies  in  waiting  in  the  same  grand  attire  changed  the  plates  of 
the  royal  pair ;  and  after  dinner,  as  indeed  throughout  the  day, 
the  queen  could  not  quit  one  room  in  the  palace  for  another,  un- 
less some  of  her  ladies  were  at  hand  in  complete  court  dress  to 
attend  upon  her.*  These  usages,  which  were  in  reality  so  many 
chains  to  restrain  all  freedom,  and  to  render  comfort  impossible, 
were  abolished  in  the  first  few  months  of  the  new  reign  ;  but,  lit- 
tle as  was  the  foundation  which  they  had  in  common  sense,  and 
equally  little  as  was  the  addition  which  they  made  to  the  royal 
dignity,  it  is  certain  that  many  of  the  courtiers,  besides  Madame 
de  Noailles,  were  greatly  disconcerted  at  their  extinction.  They 
regarded  the  queen's  orders  on  the  subject  as  a  proof  of  a  settled 
preference  for  Austrian  over  French  fashions.  They  began  to 
speak  of  her  as  "  the  Austrian,"  a  name  which,  though  Madame 
Adelaide  had  more  than  once  chosen  it  to  describe  her  during  the 
first  year  of  her  marriage,  had  since  that  time  been  almost  forgot- 

*  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  iv. 


USAGES  OF  THE  AUSTRIAN  COURT.  105 

ten,  but  which  was  now  revived,  and  was  continually  reproduced 
by  a  certain  party  to  cast  odium  on  many  of  her  most  simple 
tastes  and  most  innocent  actions.  Her  enemies  even  affirmed  that 
in  private  she  was  wont  to  call  the  Trianon  her  "  little  Vienna,"* 
as  if  the  garden,  which  she  was  laying  out  with  a  taste  that  long 
made  it  the  admiration  of  all  the  visitors  to  Versailles,  were  dear 
to  her,  not  as  affording  a  healthful  and  becoming  occupation,  nor 
for  the  sake  of  the  giver,  but  only  because  it  recalled  to  her  mem- 
ory the  gardens  of  Schonbrunn,  to  which,  as  their  malice  suggestr 
ed,  she  never  ceased  to  look  back  with  unpatriotic  regret. 

In  one  point  of  view  they  were  unquestionably  correct.  The 
queen  did  undoubtedly  desire  to  establish  in  the  French  court 
the  customs  and  the  feelings  which,  during  her  childhood,  had 
prevailed  at  Vienna;  but  they  were  wholly  wrong  in  thinking 
them  Austrian  usages.  They  were  Lorrainese  in  their  origin; 
they  had  been  imported  to  Vienna  for  the  first  time  by  her  own 
father,  the  Emperor  Francis ;  when  she  referred  to  them,  it  was 
as  "  the  patriarchal  manners  of  the  House  of  Lorraine  "f  that  she 
spoke  of  them ;  and  her  preference  for  them  was  founded  on  the 
conviction  that  it  was  to  them  that  her  mother  and  her  mother's 
family  were  indebted  for  the  love  and  reverence  of  the  people 
which  all  the  trials  and  distresses  of  the  struggle  against  Frederic 
had  never  been  able  to  impair. 

Nor  was  it  only  the  old  stiffness  and  formality,  which  had  been 
compatible  with  the  grossest  license,  that  was  now  discounte- 
nanced. A  wholly  new  spirit  was  introduced  to  animate  the  con- 
versation with  which  these  royal  entertainments  were  enlivened. 
Under  Louis  XV.,  and  indeed  before  his  reign,  intrigue  and  faction 
had  been  the  real  rulers  of  the  court,  spiteful  detraction  and  scan- 
dal had  been  its  sole  language.  But,  to  the  dispositions,  as  be- 
nevolent as  they  were  pure,  of  the  young  queen  and  her  husband, 
malice  and  calumny  were  almost  as  hateful  as  profligacy  itself. 
She  held,  with  the  great  English  dramatist,  her  contemporary,  that 
true  wit  was  nearly  allied  to  good-nature  ;J  and  she  showed  her- 
self more  decided  in  nothing  than  in  discouraging  and  checking 
every  tendency  to  disparagement  of  the  absent,  and  diffusing  a 
tone  of  friendly  kindness  over  society.  On  one  occasion,  when 


*  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  v.,  p.  106.  f  Id.,  p.  101. 

\  "Sir  Peter.  Ah,  madam,  true  wit  is  more  nearly  allied  to  good  -  nature 
than  your  ladyship  is  aware  of." — School  for  Scandal,  act  ii.,  sc.  2. 


106  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

she  heard  some  of  her  ladies  laughing  over  a  spiteful  story,  she 
reproved  them  plainly  for  their  mirth  as  "bad  taste."/  On  an- 
other she  asked  some  who  were  thus  amusing  themselves,  "  How 
they  would  like  any  one  to  speak  thus  of  themselves  in  their  ab- 
sence, and  before  her  ?"  and  her  precept,  fortified  by  example  (for 
no  unkind  comment  on  any  one  was  ever  heard  to  pass  her  lips), 
so  effectually  extinguished  the  habit  of  detraction  that  in  a  very 
short  time  it  was  remarked  that  no  courtier  ventured  on  an  ill- 
natured  word  in  her  presence,  and  that  even  the  Comte  de  Pro- 
vence, who  especially  aimed  at  the  reputation  of  a  sayer  of  good 
things,  and  affected  a  character  for  cynical  sharpness,  learned  at 
last  to  restrain  his  sarcastic  tongue,  and  at  least  to  pretend  a  dis- 
position to  look  at  people's  characters  and  actions  with  as  much 
indulgence  as  herself,  f 

i  I 


INSUFFICIENT  MONEY  ALLOWANCE.  107 


CHAPTER  X. 

Settlement  of  the  Queen's  Allowance.  —  Character  and  Views  of  Turgot. — 
She  induces  Gluck  to  visit  Paris. — Performance  of  his  Opera  of  "  Iphigenie 
en  Aulide." — The  First  Encore. — Marie  Antoinette  advocates  the  Re-estab- 
lishment of  the  Parliaments,  and  receives  an  Address  from  them. — English 
Visitors  at  the  Court. — The  King  is  compared  to  Louis  XII.  and  Henri  IV. 
— The  Archduke  Maximilian  visits  his  Sister.  —  Factious  Conduct  of  the 
Princes  of  the  Blood.  —  Anti  -  Austrian  Feeling  in  Paris.  —  The  War  of 
Grains. — The  King  is  crowned  at  Rheims. — Feelings  of  Marie  Antoinette. 
— Her  Improvements  at  the  Trianon.  —  Her  Garden  Parties  there. — De- 
scription of  her  Beauty  by  Burke,  and  by  Horace  Walpole. 

MARIA  TERESA  had  warned  her  daughter  against  extravagance, 
a  warning  which  would  have  been  regarded  as  wholly  misplaced 
by  any  other  of  the  French  princes,  who  were  accustomed  to  treat 
the  national  treasury  as  a  fund  intended  to  supply  the  means  for 
their  utmost  profusion,  but  which  certainly  coincided  with  the 
views  of  Marie  Antoinette  herself,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  vindi- 
cated herself  from  the  charge  of  prodigality,  and  declared  that  she 
took  great  care  that  her  improvements  at  the  Trianon  should  not 
be  beyond  her  means.  Yet  it  would  not  have  been  surprising  if 
they  had  been  found  to  be  so,  since,  even  after  she  became  queen, 
her  income  continued  to  be  far  too  narrow  for  her  rank.  The 
nominal  allowance  of  all  former  kings  and  queens  had  been  fixed 
at  an  unreasonably  low  rate,  from  the  pernicious  custom  of  draw- 
ing on  the  treasury  for  all  deficiencies;  but  this  mode  of  pro- 
ceeding was  inconsistent  with  the  notions  of  propriety  entertain- 
ed by  the  new  sovereigns,  and  with  those  of  the  new  finance  min- 
ister. 

Maurepas  himself  had  never  been  distinguished  for  ability,  but 
he  was  sufficiently  clear-sighted  to  be  aware  that  the  principal 
difficulties  of  the  State  arose  from  the  disorder  into  which  the 
profligacy  and  prodigality  of  the  late  reign,  ever  since  the  death 
of  the  wise  Fleury,  had  thrown  its  finances ;  and  he  had  made  a 
most  happy  choice  for  the  office  of  comptroller-general  of  finance, 
appointing  to  it  a  man  named  Turgot,  who,  as  Intendant  of  the 
Limousin,  had  brought  that  province  into  a  condition  of  prosper- 


108  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

ity  which  had  made  it  a  model  for  the  rest  of  the  kingdom.  In 
his  new  and  more  enlarged  sphere  of  action,  Turgot's  abilities  ex- 
panded; or,  perhaps  it  should  rather  be  said,  had  a  fairer  field 
for  their  display.  He  showed  himself  equally  capable  in  every 
department  of  his  duties ;  as  a  financial  reformer,  as  an  adminis- 
trator, and  as  a  legislator.  No  minister  in  the  history  of  the  na- 
tion had  ever  so  united  large-minded  genius  with  disinterested  in- 
tegrity. He  had  not  accepted  office  without  a  full  perception  of 
its  difficulties.  He  saw  all  that  had  to  be  done,  and  applied  him- 
self to  putting  the  finances  of  the  nation  on  a  healthy  footing,  as 
an  indispensable  preface  to  other  reforms  equally  necessary.  He 
easily  secured  the  co-operation  of  the  king  and  queen,  Louis 
cheerfully  adopting  the  retrenchments  which  he  recommended, 
though  some  of  them,  such  as  the  reduction  in  the  hunting  estab- 
lishment, touched  his  personal  tastes.  But  at  the  same  time,  as 
there  was  no  illiberality  in  his  economy,  or,  rather,  as  he  saw  that 
real  economy  could  only  be  practiced  if  the  sovereigns  had  a  fix- 
ed income  really  adequate  to  the  call  upon  it,  he  placed  their  al- 
lowances on  a  more  satisfactory  footing  than  had  ever  been  fixed 
for  them  before,  the  queen's  privy  purse  being  settled  at  a  sum 
which  Mercy  agreed  with  him  would  prove  sufficient  for  all  her 
expenses,  though  it  was  but  200,000  francs  a  year. 

And  so  it  was  generally  found  to  be ;  for,  with  the  exception 
of  an  occasional  fancy  for  some  splendid  jewel,  Marie  Antoinette 
had  no  expensive  tastes.  Her  economy  was  even  far  greater  than 
her  attendants  approved,  extending  to  details  which  they  would 
have  wished  her  to  regard  as  beneath  the  dignity  of  a  sovereign  ;* 
and  so  judiciously  did  she  manage  her  resources  that  she  was 
able  to  defray  out  of  her  privy  purse  the  pensions  which  she  oc- 
casionally conferred  on  men  eminent  in  arts  or  literature,  whom 
she  rightly  judged  it  a  royal  duty  to  encourage. 

One  of  her  first  acts  of  liberality  of  this  kind  was  exercised  in 
favor  of  a  countryman  of  her  own,  the  celebrated  Gluck.  Music 
was  one  of  her  most  favorite  accomplishments.  She  still  devoted 
a  portion  of  almost  every  day  in  taking  lessons  on  the  harp ;  but 
the  French  music  was  not  to  her  taste  ;  while,  since  the  death  of 
Handel,  Gluck's  superiority  to  all  his  other  musical  contempora- 

*  "  Elle  avait  entierement  le  d6faut  contraire  [&  la  prodigalite],  et  je  pou- 
vais  prouver  qu'elle  portait  souvent  1'economie  jusqu'ik  des  details  d'unc  me- 
squinerie  blamable,  surtout  dans  une  souveraine." — MADAME  DE  CAMPAN,  ch. 
F.,  p.  106,  ed.  1868. 


SCENE  AT  THE  OPERA.  109 

ries  had  been  generally  acknowledged  in  all  countries.  She  now, 
by  the  gift  of  a  pension  of  6000  francs,  induced  him  to  visit 
Paris.  It  was  at  the  French  opera  that  many  of  his  most  cele- 
brated works  were  first  given  to  the  world ;  and  an  incident  which 
took  place  at  the  performance  of  one  of  them  showed  that,  if  the 
frequenters  of  Versailles  were  dissatisfied  at  the  inroads  lately 
made  on  the  old  etiquette,  the  queen  had  a  compensation  in  the 
warm  attachment  with  which  she  had  inspired  the  Parisians.  In- 
stead of  conveying  the  performers  to  Versailles,  as  had  been  the 
extravagant  practice  of  the  late  reign,  Louis  and  Marie  Antoinette 
went  into  Paris  when  they  desired  to  visit  the  theatre.  The  citi- 
zens, delighted  at  the  contrast  which  their  frequent  visits  to  the 
capital  afforded  to  the  marked  dislike  of  it  shown  by  the  late 
king,  crowded  the  theatre  on  every  night  on  which  they  were  ex- 
pected ;  and  on  one  of  these  occasions  Gluck's  "  Iphigenie  "  was 
the  opera  selected  for  performance.  It  contains  a  chorus  in 
which,  according  to  the  design  of  the  dramatist,  Achilles  was  di- 
rected to  turn  to  his  followers  with  the  words 

"  Chantez,  c41ebrez  votre  reine." 

But  the  French  opera-singers  were  a  courtly  race.  The  French 
opera  had  been  established  a  century  before  as  a  Royal  Academy 
of  Music  by  Louis  XIV.,  who  had  issued  letters  patent  which  de- 
clared the  profession  of  an  opera-singer  one  that  might  be  follow- 
ed even  by  a  nobleman ;  and  it  seemed,  therefore,  quite  consistent 
with  the  rank  thus  conferred  on  them  that  they  should  take  the 
lead  in  paying  loyal  compliments  to  their  princes.  Accordingly, 
when  the  performer  who  represented  the  invincible  son  of  Thetis, 
the  popular  tenor  singer,  Le  Gros,  came  to  the  chorus  in  question, 
he  was  found  to  have  prepared  a  slight  change  in  his  part.  He 
did  not  address  himself  to  the  myrmidons  behind  him,  but  he 
came  forward,  and,  with  a  bow  to  the  boxes  and  pit,  substituted 
the  following, 

"  Chantons,  c616brons  notre  reine, 
L'hymen,  que  sous  ses  lois  Penchaine, 
Va  nous  rendre  a  jamais  heureux" 

The  audience  was  taken  by  surprise,  but  it  was  a  surprise  of  de- 
light. The  whole  house  rose  to  its  feet,  cheering  and  clapping 
their  hands.  For  the  first  time  in  theatrical  history,  the  repetition 
of  a  song  was  demanded.  The  now  familiar  term  of  "  Encore !" 
was  heard  and  obeyed.  The  queen  herself  was  affected  to  tears 


110  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

by  the  enthusiastic  affection  displayed  toward  her,  nor  at  such  a 
moment  did  she  suffer  her  feeling  of  the  evanescent  character  of 
popularity  among  so  light-minded  a  people  to  dwell  in  her  mind, 
or  to  mar  the  pleasure  which  such  a  reception  was  well  calculated 
to  impart. 

Popularity  at  this  moment  seemed  doubly  valuable  to  her,  be- 
cause she  was  not  ignorant  that  the  feeling  of  disappointment  at 
the  unproductiveness  of  her  marriage  had  recently  been  increased 
by  the  knowledge  that  the  young  Countess  d'Artois  was  about  to 
become  a  mother.  And  the  attachment  which  she  inspired  was 
not  confined  to  the  play-goers ;  it  was  shared  by  a  body  so  little  in- 
clined to  exhibitions  of  impulsive  loyalty  as  the  Parliament.  It 
has  been  seen  that  Louis  XV.  had  abolished  that  body ;  but  one 
of  the  first  proposals  made  by  Maurepas  to  the  new  king  had  had 
its  re  -  establishment  for  its  object.  The  question  had  been  dis- 
cussed in  the  king's  council,  and  also  in  the  royal  family,  with 
great  eagerness.  The  ablest  of  the  ministers  protested  against 
the  restoration  of  an  assembly  which  had  invariably  shown  itself 
turbulent  and  usurping,  and  the  king  himself  was  generally  under- 
stood to  share  their  views.  But  Marie  Antoinette,  led  by  the  ad- 
vice of  Choiseul,  was  eager  in  her  support  of  Maurepas,  and  it  was 
believed  that  her  influence  decided  Louis.  If  it  was  so,  it  was 
an  exertion  of  her  power  that  she  had  ample  cause  to  repent  at  a 
subsequent  period ;  but  at  the  time  she  thought  of  nothing  but 
showing  her  sense  of  the  general  superiority  of  Choiseul,  and  so 
requiting  some  of  the  obligations  under  which  she  considered  that 
she  lay  to  him  for  arranging  her  marriage ;  and  she  received  a 
deputation  from  the  re-established  Parliament  with  marked  pleas- 
ure, and  replied  to  their  address  with  a  graciousness  which  seem- 
ed intended  to  show  that  she  sincerely  rejoiced  at  the  event  which 
had  given  cause  for  it. 

It  was  not  till  Christmas  that  the  royal  family  went  out  of 
mourning ;  but,  as  soon  as  it  was  left  off,  the  court  returned  to 
its  accustomed  gayety — balls,  concerts,  and  private  theatricals  oc- 
cupying the  evenings;  though  the  people  remarked  with  undis- 
guised satisfaction  that  the  expenses  of  former  years  had  been 
greatly  retrenched.  It  was  also  noticed  that  many  foreigners  of 
distinction,  and  especially  some  English  ladies  of  high  rank,  glad- 
ly accepted  invitations  to  the  balls,  which  they  certainly  would 
not  have  done  while  their  presence  was  likely  to  bring  them  into 
contact  with  Madame  du  Barri.  Lady  Ailesbury  is  especially 


VISIT  OF  THE  ARCHDUKE  MAXIMILIAN.  \\\ 

mentioned  as  having  been  received  with  marked  distinction  by 
the  queen,  and  also  by  the  king,  who  was  careful  to  show  his  ap- 
proval of  her  entertainments  by  the  share  which  he  took  in  them ; 
and,  as  he  paraded  the  saloons  arm-in-arm  with  her,  to  distinguish 
those  whom  she  noticed,  so  that,  to  quote  the  words  of  one  of  the 
most  lively  chroniclers  of  the  day,  their  example  seemed  to  be 
fast  bringing  conjugal  love  and  fidelity  into  fashion.  She  even 
persuaded  him  to  depart  still  further  from  his  usual  reserve,  so  as 
to  appear  in  costume  at  more  than  one  fancy  ball ;  the  dress 
which  he  chose  being  that  of  the  only  predecessor  of  his  own 
house  whom  he  could  in  any  point  have  desired  to  resemble,  Hen- 
ry IV.  He  had  already  been  indirectly  compared  to  that  mon- 
arch, the  first  Bourbon  king,  by  the  ingenious  flattery  of  a  print- 
seller.  In  the  long  list  of  sovereigns  who  had  reigned  over  France 
in  the  five  hundred  years  which  had  passed  by  since  the  warrior- 
saint  of  the  Crusades  had  laid  down  his  life  on  the  sands  of 
Tunis,  there  had  been  but  two  to  whom  their  countrymen  could 
look  back  with  affection  or  respect  —  Louis  XII.,  to  whom  his 
subjects  had  given  the  title  of  The  Good,  and  Henry,  to  whom 
more  than  one  memorial  still  preserved  the  surname  of  The  Great. 
And  the  courtly  picture-dealer,  eager  to  make  his  market  of  the 
gratitude  with  which  his  fellow-citizens  greeted  the  reforms  with 
which  the  reigning  sovereign  had  already  inaugurated  his  reign, 
contrived  to  extract  a  compliment  to  him  even  out  of  the  severe 
prose  of  the  multiplication-table ;  publishing  a  joint  portrait  of 
the  three  kings,  Louis  XII.,  Henry  IV.,  and  Louis  XVI,  with  an 
inscription  beneath  to  testify  that  12  and  4  made  16. 

In  the  spring  of  1775,  Marie  Antoinette  received  a  great  pleas- 
ure in  a  visit  from  her  younger  brother,  Maximilian.  He  was 
the  only  member  of  her  family  whom  she  had  seen  in  the  five 
years  that  had  elapsed  since  she  left  Vienna.  But,  eagerly  as 
she  had  looked  forward  to  his  visit,  it  did  not  bring  her  unmixed 
satisfaction,  being  marred  by  the  ill -breeding  of  the  princes  of 
the  blood,  and  still  more  by  the  approval  of  their  conduct  dis- 
played by  the  citizens  of  Paris,  which  seemed  to  afford  a  con- 
vincing evidence  of  the  small  effect  which  even  the  queen's  virt- 
ues and  graces  had  produced  in  softening  the  old  national  feeling 
of  enmity  to  the  house  of  Austria.  The  archduke,  who  was  still 
but  a  youth,  did  not  assert  his  royal  rank  while  on  his  travels,  but 
preserved  such  an  incognito  as  princes  on  such  occasions  are  wont 
to  assume,  and  took  the  title  of  Count  de  Burgau.  The  king's 


112  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

brothers,  however,  like  the  king  himself,  paid  no  regard  to  his  dis- 
guise, but  visited  him  at  the  first  instant  of  his  arrival ;  but  the 
princes  of  the  blood  stood  on  their  dignity,  refused  to  acknowl- 
edge a  rank  which  was  not  publicly  avowed,  or  to  recollect  that 
the  visitor  was  a  foreigner  and  brother  to  their  queen,  and  insisted 
on  receiving  the  attention  of  the  first  visit  from  him.  The  ex- 
citement which  the  question  caused  in  the  palace,  and  the  queen's 
indignation  at  the  slight  thus  offered,  as  she  conceived,  to  her 
brother,  were  great.  High  words  passed  between  .her  and  the 
Due  d'Orleans,  the  chief  of  the  recusants,  on  the  subject;  and 
one  part  of  her  remonstrance  throws  a  curious  additional  light  on 
the  strange  distance  which,  as  has  been  already  pointed  out,  the 
etiquette  of  the  French  court  had  established  between  the  sover- 
eigns and  the  very  highest  of  their  subjects,  even  the  nearest  of 
their  relations.  The  duke  had  insisted  on  the  incognito  as  debar- 
ring Maximilian  from  all  claim  to  attention  from  a  prince  like 
himself  whose  rank  was  not  concealed.  She  urged  that  the  king 
and  his  brothers  had  not  regarded  it  in  that  light.  "  The  duke 
knew,"  she  said,  "that  the  king  had  treated  Maximilian  as  a 
brother ;  that  he  even  invited  him  to  sup  in  private  with  himself 
and  her,  an  honor  to  which  no  prince  of  the  blood  had  ever  pre- 
tended." And,  finally,  warming  with  her  subject,  she  told  him 
that,  though  her  brother  would  be  sorry  not  to  make  the  acquaint- 
ance of  the  princes  of  the  blood,  he  had  many  other  things  in 
Paris  to  see,  and  would  manage  to  do  without  it."*  Her  ex- 
postulation was  fruitless.  The  princes  adhered  to  their  resolution, 
and  she  to  hers.  They  were  not  admitted  to  any  of  the  festivi- 
ties of  the  palace  during  the  archduke's  stay,  and  were  even  ex- 
cluded from  all  the  private  entertainments  which  were  given  in 
his  honor,  since  she  made  it  known  that  the  king  and  she  would 
refuse  to  attend  any  to  which  they  were  invited.  But,  though 
their  conduct  was  surely  both  discourteous  to  a  foreigner  and 
disrespectful  to  their  sovereign,  the  Parisian  populace  took  their 
part;  and  some  of  them  who  showed  themselves  ostentatiously 
in  the  streets  of  the  city  on  days  on  which  there  were  parties  at 
Versailles  were  loudly  applauded  by  a  crowd  which  was  not  en- 
tirely drawn  from  the  lower  classes.  It  was  noticed  that  the  Due 
de  Chartres,  the  son  of  the  Due  d'Orleans,  was  one  of  the  fore- 
most in  exciting  this  anti-Austrian  feeling,  the  outbreak  of  which 

*  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  307. 


ENERGY  OF  TURGOT.  113 

was  especially  remarkable  as  the  first  instance  in  which  the  en- 
thusiasm of  the  citizens  for  Marie  Antoinette  seemed  to  have 
cooled,  or  at  least  to  have  been  interrupted.  And  this  change  in 
their  feelings  produced  so  painful  an  impression  on  her  mind, 
that,  after  her  brother's  departure,  she  abandoned  her  intention  of 
going  to  the  opera,  though  Gluck's  "  Orfeo  "  was  to  be  perform- 
ed, lest  she  should  meet  with  a  reception  less  cordial  than  that  to 
which  she  had  hitherto  been  accustomed. 

This  ebullition  against  the  house  of  Austria,  however,  was  at 
the  moment  dictated  rather  by  discontent  with  the  Home  Gov- 
ernment than  by  any  settled  feeling  on  the  subject  of  foreign 
politics.  Corn  had  been  at  a  rather  high  price  in  Paris  and  its 
neighborhood  throughout  the  winter ;  and  the  dearness  was  taken 
advantage  of  by  the  enemies  of  Turgot,  and  employed  by  them 
as  an  argument  to  prove  the  impolicy  of  his  measures  to  intro- 
duce freedom  of  trade.  They  even  organized*  formidable  riots 
at  Paris  and  Versailles,  which,  however,  Turgot,  whose  resolution 
was  equal  to  his  capacity,  prevailed  on  the  king  to  repress  by  acts 
of  vigor  very  unusual  to  him,  and  very  foreign  to  his  disposition. 
The  troops  were  called  out ;  the  Parliament  was  summoned  to  a 
Bed  of  Justice,  and  enjoined  to  put  the  law  in  force  against  the 
guilty ;  two  of  the  most  violent  rioters  were  executed ;  order  was 
restored,  and  the  wholly  factitious  character  of  the  outbreak  was 
proved  by  the  tranquillity  which  ensued,  though  the  price  of  bread 
remained  unaltered  till  the  commencement  of  the  harvest,  the  cit- 
izens themselves  presently  making  a  jest  of  their  sedition,  and 
nicknaming  it  The  War  of  the  Grains.f 

In  France,  one  excitement  soon  drives  out  another,  and  the 
whole  attention  of  the  nation  was  now  fixed  on  the  coronation, 
which  had  been  appointed  to  take  place  in  June.  After  some 
discussion,  it  had  been  settled  that  Louis  should  be  crowned 
alone.  There  had  not  been  many  precedents  for  the  coronation 
of  a  queen  in  France ;  and  the  last  instance,  that  of  Marie  de 
Medicis,  as  having  been  followed  by  the  assassination  of  her  hus- 

*  See  the  author's  "  History  of  France  under  the  Bourbons,"  iii.,  p.  418.  La- 
cretelle,  iv.,  p.  368,  affirms  that  this  outbreak,  for  which  in  his  eyes  "  une  pre- 
tendue  disette "  was  only  a  pretext,  was  "  6videmment  foments  par  des 
hommes  puissans,"  and  that  "  un  salaire  qui  4tait  paye  par  des  hommes  qu'on 
ne  pouvait  nommer  aujourd'hui  avec  assez  de  certitude,  excitait  leurs  fureurs 
factices." 

f  La  Guerre  des  Farines. 

8 


114  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

band,  was  regarded  by  many  as  a  bad  omen.  If  Marie  Antoinette 
had  herself  expressed  any  wish  to  be  her  husband's  partner  in  the 
solemnity,  it  would  certainly  have  been  complied  with,  and  their 
subsequent  fate  would  have  been  regarded  as  a  confirmation  of 
the  evil  augury.  But  she  was  indifferent  on  the  subject,  and 
quite  contented  to  behold  it  as  a  spectator.  It  took  place  on 
Sunday,  the  llth  of  June,  in  the  grand  Cathedral  at  Kheims. 
The  progress  of  the  royal  family,  which  had  quit  Versailles  for 
that  city  on  the  preceding  Monday,  had  resembled  a  triumph- 
ant procession,  so  enthusiastic  had  been  the  acclamations  which 
had  greeted  the  king  and  queen  at  each  town  through  which  they 
had  passed;  and  all  the  previous  displays  of  joy  were  outdone 
by  the  demonstrations  afforded  by  the  citizens  of  Rheims  itself. 
It  was  midnight,  on  the  8th  of  June,  when  the  queen  reached  the 
gates ;  but  the  road  outside  and  the  streets  inside  were  thronged 
with  a  crowd  as  dense  as  midday  could  have  produced,  which 
followed  her  to  the  archbishop's  palace,  making  the  whole  city 
resound  with  their  loyal  cheers ;  and  which,  the  next  morning, 
awaited  her  coming-forth  after  holding  a  grand  reception  of  all 
the  nobles  of  the  province,  to  meet  the  king  when  he  made  his 
solemn  entry  in  the  afternoon.  The  ceremony  in  the  cathedral 
was  one  of  great  magnificence;  but,  in  the  account  of  the  day 
which,  after  her  return  to  Versailles,  she  wrote  to  her  mother, 
she  does  not  enter  into  details,  as  being  necessarily  known  to  the 
empress  in  their  general  character ;  confining  herself  rather  to  a 
description  of  the  impression  which  the  manifest  cordiality  with 
which  the  whole  people  had  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  solem- 
nity had  made  upon  her  own  mind  and  heart.* 

"  The  coronation  was  perfect  in  every  respect.  It  was  made 
plain  that  every  one  was  highly  delighted  with  the  king,  and  so 
he  deserves  that  all  his  subjects  should  be.  Great  and  small,  all 
displayed  the  greatest  interest  in  him;  and  at  the  moment  of 
placing  the  crown  on  his  head  the  ceremonies  of  the  church  were 
interrupted  by  the  most  touching  acclamations.  I  could  not  re- 
strain myself ;  my  tears  flowed  in  spite  of  all  my  efforts,  and  the 
people  were  pleased  to  see  them.  During  the  whole  time  of  our 
journey  I  did  my  best  to  correspond  to  the  earnestness  of  the 
people ;  and  although  the  heat  was  great,  and  the  crowd  im- 
mense, I  do  not  regret  my  fatigue,  which,  moreover,  has  not  in- 

*  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  342. 


MARIE  ANTOINETTE  AT  THE  TRIANON.  H5 

jured  my  health.  It  is  a  very  astonishing  circumstance,  but  at 
the  same  time  a  very  pleasant  one,  to  be  so  well  received  only 
two  months  after  the  revolt,  and  in  spite  of  the  high  price  of 
bread,  which  unhappily  still  continues.  It  is  a  strange  peculiar- 
ity in  the  French  character  to  allow  themselves  to  be  so  easily  led 
away  by  mischievous  suggestions,  and  then  immediately  to  return 
to  good  behavior.  It  is  very  certain  that  when  we  see  people, 
even  in  times  of  distress,  treating  us  so  well,  we  are  the  more 
bound  to  labor  for  their  happiness.  The  king  seems  to  me  pene- 
trated with  this  truth.  As  for  me,  I  feel  that  all  my  life,  even  if  I 
were  to  live  a  hundred  years,  I  shall  never  forget  the  coronation 
day." 

But  all  the  tumultuous  pomp  and  exultation  only  made  her  re- 
turn with  renewed  pleasure  to  her  quiet  retreat  of  the  Trianon, 
which,  with  the  assistance  of  the  illustrious  Buffon,  then  superin- 
tendent of  the  king's  gardens,  and  of  Bernard  de  Jussieu,  Director 
of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  and  celebrated  as  one  of  the  first  bota- 
nists of  Europe,  she  was  laying  out  with  a  delicate  taste  that  long 
rendered  it  one  of  the  chief  attractions  to  all  the  inhabitants  of 
the  district.  For  the  sentiment  which  she  expressed  in  the  let- 
ter to  the  empress,  which  has  just  been  quoted,  was  not  the  mere 
formal  utterance  of  a  barren  philanthropy,  but  was  dictated  and 
carried  out  by  an  active  benevolence.  She  felt  in  her  inmost 
heart  the  duty  which  she  there  professed,  of  exerting  herself  to 
promote  the  happiness  of  the  people,  and  was  far  too  unselfish  to 
desire  to  keep  to  herself  the  whole  of  the  delight  her  gardens 
were  calculated  to  afford.  The  Trianon  was  a  possession  exactly 
calculated  to  gratify  her  taste  for  innocent  rural  pleasure.  As 
she  said  herself,  at  Versailles  she  was  a  queen ;  here  she  was  a 
plain  country  lady,  superintending  not  only  her  flowers,  but  her 
farm-yard  and  her  dairy,  taking  pride  in  her  stock  and  her  prod- 
uce. She  would  invite  the  king  and  the  rest  of  the  royal  fami- 
ly to  garden  parties,  where,  at  a  table  set  out  under  a  bower  of 
honeysuckle,  she  would  pour  out  their  coffee  with  her  own  hands, 
boasting  of  the  thickness  of  her  cream,  the  freshness  of  her  eggs, 
the  ruddiness  and  flavor  of  her  strawberries,  as  so  many  proofs  of 
her  skill  in  managing  her  establishment ;  and  would  not  fear  to 
shock  her  aunts  by  tempting  one  of  her  sisters-in-law  to  a  game 
at  ball,  or  battledoor  and  shuttlecock.  But  she  probably  enjoyed' 
still  more  the  power  of  gratifying  the  inhabitants  of  Versailles 
and  the  neighborhood.  The  moment  that  her  improvements 


116  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

were  completed,  she  opened  the  gardens  to  the  public  to  walk  in, 
and  gave  out-of-door  parties  and  children's  dances,  to  which  all 
the  inhabitants  of  Versailles  who  presented  themselves  in  decent 
apparel  were  admitted.  She  would  even  open  the  dance  herself 
with  some  well-conducted  boy,  and  afterward  stroll  among  the 
crowd,  talking  affably  to  all  the  company,  even  to  the  governesses 
and  nurses,  and  delighting  the  parents  with  the  interest  which 
she  exhibited  in  the  characters,  the  growth,  and  even  the  names 
of  the  children. 

There  were  some  who,  startled  at  the  unwonted  sight  of  a 
sovereign  so  treating  her  subjects  as  fellow-creatures,  confessed  a 
fear  that  such  familiarity  was  not  without  its  dangers  ;*  but  the 
objects  of  her  condescension  worshiped  her  for  it ;  and  for  a  time 
at  least  the  great  majority  of  the  nation  forgot  that  she  was  Aus- 
trian. She  was  now  nearly  twenty  years  of  age.  Her  form  had 
developed  into  a  rare  perfection  of  elegance.  Her  features  had 
added  to  the  original  brilliancy  of  her  girlish  loveliness  something 
of  that  higher  beauty  which  judgment  and  sagacity  inspire,  and 
which  dignity  renders  only  the  more  imposing;  while  the  same 
benevolence  and  purity  beamed  in  every  look  which  were  remark- 
ed as  her  most  sterling  characteristics  on  her  first  arrival  in  the 
country.  And  it  is  not  to  her  French  or  German  admirers  alone 
that  we  are  reduced  to  trust  for  the  impression  which  at  this 
time  she  made  on  all  beholders.  We  have  seen  that  English  gen- 
tlemen and  ladies  of  rank  were  frequent  visitors  to  the  French 
court ;  and  from  two  of  these,  men  of  widely  different  characters, 
talents,  and  turns  of  mind,  we  have  a  striking  concurrence  of  tes- 
timony as  to  the  power  of  the  fascination  which  she  exerted  on 
all  who  came  within  the  sphere  of  her  influence.  Burke  was  the 
earlier  visitor.  Indeed,  it  was  in  the  last  months  of  the  preceding 
reign,  while  she  was  still  dauphiness,  that  she  had  excited  in  his 
enthusiastic  imagination  those  emotions  which  he  afterward  de- 
scribed in  words  which  will  live  as  long  as  the  English  language. 
It  was  in  the  spring  of  1774  that  it  seemed  to  him  that  "  surely 
never  lighted  on  this  orb,  which  she  hardly  seemed  to  touch,  a 
more  delightful  vision.  I  saw  her  just  above  the  horizon,  dec- 
orating and  cheering  the  elevated  sphere  she  just  began  to  move 
in  —  glittering  like  the  morning -star,  full  of  life,  and  splendor, 
and  joy."  No  one  could  be  less  like  Burke  than  Horace  Wal- 

*  "Souvenirs  de  Vaublanc,"  i.,  p.  231. 


BEAUTY  OF  THE  QUEEN.  117 

pole,  a  cynical  observer,  who  piqued  himself  on  indifference,  and 
especially  on  a  superiority  to  the  vulgar  belief  in  the  merits  and 
attractions  of  kings  and  princes.  Yet  his  report  of  the  charms 
of  Marie  Antoinette,  as  he  saw  them  in  the  autumn  of  this  year, 
1775,  reveals  an  admiration  of  them  as  vivid  as  that  of  the  warm- 
hearted and  more  poetical  Irishman.  He  saw  her,  as  he  reports 
to  Lady  Ossory,  first  at  a  state  court  ball,*  given  on  the  occasion 
of  the  marriage  of  the  Princess  Clotilde,  in  the  theatre  of  the  pal- 
ace ;  and  he  would  have  desired  to  give  his  correspondent  some 
description  of  the  beauty  of  the  building;  "the  bravest  in  the 
universe,  and  yet  one  in  which  taste  predominates  over  expense  ;" 
but  he  was  absorbed  by  the  still  more  powerful  attractions  of  the 
princess  whom  he  had  seen  in  it :  "  What  I  have  to  say  I  can 
tell  your  ladyship  in  a  word,  for  it  was  impossible  to  see  any 
thing  but  the  queen.  Hebes,  and  Floras,  and  Helens,  and  Graces 
are  street-walkers  to  her.  She  is  a  statue  and  beauty  when  stand- 
ing or  sitting ;  grace  itself  when  she  moves."  As  he  is  writing 
to  a  lady,  he  proceeds  to  describe  her  dress,  which  to  ladies  of  the 
present  day  may  still  have  its  interest :  "  She  was  dressed  in  sil- 
ver, scattered  over  with  laurier  roses ;  few  diamonds ;  and  feath- 
ers, much  lower  than  the  monument."  He  proceeds  to  describe 
the  ball  itself,  and  some  of  the  company,  which  was,  however,  very 
select ;  but  at  every  sentence  or  two  he  comes  back  to  the  queen, 
so  deep  and  so  real  was  the  impression  which  she  had  made  on 
him.  "Monsieur  is  very  handsome.  The  Comte  d'Artois  is  a 
better  figure  and  a  better  dancer.  Their  characters  approach  to 
those  of  two  other  royal  dukes.f  There  were  but  eight  minuets, 
and,  except  the  queen  and  princesses,  only  eight  lady  dancers ;  I 
was  not  so  much  struck  with  the  dancing  as  I  expected.  For 
beauty  I  saw  none,  or  the  queen  effaced  all  the  rest.  After  the 
minuets  were  French  country  -  dances,  much  incumbered  by  the 
long  trains,  longer  tresses,  and  hoops.  In  the  intervals  of  dan- 
cing, baskets  of  peaches,  china  oranges  (a  little  out  of  season), 
biscuits,  ices,  and  wine-and-water  were  presented  to  the  royal  fam- 
ily and  dancers.  The  ball  lasted  just  two  hours.  The  monarch 
did  not  dance,  but  for  the  first  two  rounds  of  the  minuet  even  the 
queen  does  not  turn  her  back  to  him.  Yet  her  behavior  is  as 
easy  as  divine." 

*  August  23d,  1775,  No.  1524,  in  Cunningham's  edition,  vol.  vi.,  p.  245. 
f  The  Prince  of  Wales  and  the  Duke  of  York,  who  were  just  at  this  time 
astonishing  London  with  their  riotous  living. 


118  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

Such  was  a  French  court  ball  on  days  of  most  special  ceremony, 
a  somewhat  solemn  affair,  which  required  graciousness  such  as 
that  of  Marie  Antoinette  to  make  admission  to  every  one  a  very 
enviable  privilege ;  even  though  its  stiffness  had  been  in  some  de- 
gree relieved  by  a  new  regulation  of  the  queen,  that  the  invita- 
tions, which  had  hitherto  been  confined  to  matrons,  should  be  ex- 
tended to  unmarried  girls.  Scarcely  any  change  produced  great- 
er consternation  among  the  admirers  of  old  customs.  The  dow- 
agers searched  all  the  registers  of  those  who  had  been  admitted 
to  the  court  balls  since  the  beginning  of  the  century  to  fortify 
their  objections.  But,  to  their  dismay,  some  of  the  early  festiv- 
ities in  the  time  of  Marie  Leczinska  proved  to  have  been  shared 
by  one  or  two  noble  maidens.  The  discovery  was  of  little  im- 
portance, since  Marie  Antoinette  had  shown  that  she  was  not 
afraid  of  making  precedents.  But  still  it  in  some  degree  silenced 
the  grumblers,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  reign  no  one  contested  the 
queen's  right  to  decide  who  should,  and  who  should  not,  be  ad- 
mitted to  her  society. 


HORSE-RACING   OF  COUNT  D'ABTOIS.  \\g 


CHAPTER  XL 

Tea  is  introduced. — Horse-racing  of  Count  d'Artois. — Marie  Antoinette  goes 
to  see  it. — The  Queen's  Submissiveness  to  the  Reproofs  of  the  Empress. — 
Birth  of  the  Due  d'Angouleme. — She  at  times  speaks  lightly  of  the  King. — 
The  Emperor  remonstrates  with  her. — Character  of  some  of  the  Queen's 
Friends. — The  Princess  de  Lamballe. — The  Countess  Jules  de  Polignac. — 
They  set  the  Queen  against  Turgot. — She  procures  his  Dismissal. — She 
gratifies  Madame  Polignac's  Friends. — Her  Regard  for  the  French  Peo- 
ple.— Water  Parties  on  the  Seine. — Her  Health  is  Delicate. — Gambling  at 
the  Palace. 

NOR  were  these  the  only  innovations  which  marked  the  age.  A 
rage  for  adopting  English  fashions — Anglomanie,  as  it  was  called 
— began  to  prevail ;  and,  among  the  different  modes  in  which  it 
exhibited  itself,  it  is  especially  noticed  that  tea*  was  now  intro- 
duced, and  began  to  share  with  coffee  the  privileges  of  affording 
sober  refreshment  to  those  who  aspired  in  their  different  ways  to 
give  the  tone  to  French  society. 

A  less  innocent  novelty  was  a  passion  for  horse-racing,  in  which 
the  Comte  d'Artois  and  the  Due  de  Chartres  set  the  example  of 
indulging,  establishing  a  race -course  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne. 
The  count  had  but  little  difficulty  in  persuading  the  queen  to  at- 
tend it,  and  she  soon  showed  so  decided  a  fancy  for  the  sport,  and 
became  so  regular  a  visitor  of  it,  that  a  small  stand  was  built  for 
her,  which  in  subsequent  years  provoked  some  unfavorable  com- 
ments, when  the  princess  obtained  her  leave  to  give  luncheon  in  it 
to  some  of  their  racing  friends,  who  were  not  in  all  instances  of  a 
character  deserving  to  be  brought  into  a  royal  presence. 

She  pursued  this,  as  she  pursued  every  other  amusement  which 
she  took  up,  with  great  keenness  for  a  while,  so  much  so  as  to 
provoke  earnest  remonstrances  from  her  mother,  whose  letters 
were  commonly  dictated  by  Mercy's  reports  and  suggestions. 
Nor,  if  she  felt  uneasiness,  did  Maria  Teresa  spare  her  daughter, 
or  take  any  great  care  to  moderate  her  language  of  reproof.  At 
times  her  tone  is  so  severe  as  to  excite  a  feeling  of  wonder  at  the 

*  "  Gustave  III.  et  la  Cour  de  France,"  i.,  p.  279. 


120  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

submissiveness  with  which  her  letters  were  received.  No  express 
eulogy  of  her  admirers  could  give  so  great  an  idea  of  Marie  An- 
toinette's amiability,  good-nature,  genuine  modesty,  and  sincere  af- 
fection for  her  mother,  as  the  ingenuousness  with  which  she  ad- 
mits errors,  or  the  temper  with  which  she  urges  excuses.  To  that 
venerated  parent  she  is  just  as  patient  of  admonition,  now  that 
she  is  seated  on  a  throne,  as  she  could  have  been  in  her  school- 
room at  Schonbrunn ;  and,  in  reply  to  the  scoldings  (no  milder 
word  can  do  justice  to  the  earnest  vehemence  of  the  letters  which 
at  this  time  she  received  from  Vienna),  she  pleads  not  only  that 
an  appetite  for  amusement  is  natural  to  her  age,  but  that  she  en- 
ters into  none  of  which  the  king  does  not  fully  approve,  and  none 
which  are  ever  allowed  to  interfere  with  her  giving  him  full 
enjoyment  of  her  society  whenever  he  has  leisure  or  inclination 
for  it. 

But  her  replies  to  her  mother  hint  also  at  the  continuance  of 
the  old  causes  for  her  restlessness,  and  for  her  eager  pursuit  of 
new  diversions  to  distract  her  thoughts.  Her  natural  desire  for 
children  of  her  own  was  greatly  increased  when,  on  the  12th  of 
August,  her  sister-in-law,  the  Countess  d'Artois,  presented  her  hus- 
band with  a  son.*  She  treated  the  young  mother  with  a  sisterly 
kindness  suited  to  the  occasion,  which  extorted  the  unqualified 
praise  of  Mercy  himself;  but  she  could  not  restrain  her  feelings 
on  the  subject  to  her  mother,  and  she  expressed  to  her  frankly 
the  extreme  pain  "  which  she  suffered  at  thus  seeing  an  heir  to 
the  throne  who  was  not  her  own  child."  Nor  is  it  strange  that 
at  such  moments  she  should  feel  hurt  at  the  coldness  with  which 
her  husband  continued  to  behave  toward  her,  or  that  she  should 
run  eagerly  after  any  excitement  which  might  aid  in  diverting 
her  mind  from  a  comparison  of  her  own  position  with  that  of  her 
happier  sister-in-law.f 

It  would  have  been  well  if  she  had  confined  her  expressions  of 
disappointment  to  her  mother.  But  since  we  may  not  disguise 
her  occasional  acts  of  imprudence,  it  must  be  confessed  that  at 
times  her  mortification  led  her  to  speak  of  her  husband  to  stran- 
gers in  a  tone  of  disparagement  which  was  highly  unbecoming. 
Maximilian  had  been  accompanied  by  the  Count  de  Rosenburg, 

*  The  Due  d'Angou!6me,  afterward  dauphin,  when  the  Count  d'Artois  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne  as  Charles  X. 

f  Marie  Antoinette  to  Maria  Teresa,  August  12th,  17*75,  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  366. 


UNOUAItDEDNESS  OF  HER  LANGUAGE.  121 

who  had  in  consequence  been  admitted  to  the  intimate  society 
of  the  court  during  the  archduke's  visit,  and  who  had  inspired 
Marie  Antoinette  with  so  favorable  an  opinion  of  his  character 
and  judgment  that  after  his  return  to  Vienna  she  more  than  once 
sent  him  an  account  of  the  proceedings  at  the  palace  since  her 
brother's  departure.  She  describes  to  him  a  series  of  concerts,  at 
which  she  had  sung  herself  with  some  of  her  ladies.  She  gives 
him  a  list  of  the  guests,  remarking,  with  a  particularity  which 
seems  to  show  ^hat  she  expects  her  words  to  be  reported  to  the 
empress,  that  the  gentlemen,  though  amiable  and  well  bred,  were 
not  young.  But  she  also  complains  that  the  king's  tastes  do  not 
resemble  hers,  that  he  cares  for  nothing  but  hunting  and  mechan- 
ical employments ;  and,  indulging  in  an  unwonted  fit  of  sarcasm, 
she  proceeds :  "  You  will  allow  that  I  should  not  look  well  beside 
a  forge.  I  could  never  become  a  Vulcan ;  and  the  part  of  Venus 
would  displease  him  more  than  my  real  tastes,  which  he  does  not 
disapprove."  In  another  letter  she  mentions  him  in  a  tone  of 
contemptuous  pity,  almost  equally  unbecoming,  speaking  of  him 
as  "  the  poor  man  "  whom  she  had  made  a  tool  of  to  further  some 
views  of  her  own,  though  Mercy  assured  the  empress  that  her  as- 
sertion of  having  so  treated  him  was  a  mere  fiction  of  her  im- 
agination, to  impart  a  sort  of  lively  tone  to  her  letter ;  that,  in 
spite  of  occasional  outbursts  of  levity,  she  had  in  reality  the  firm- 
est affection  and  esteem  for  Louis;  and  that  nothing  could  be 
more  irreproachable  than  her  conduct  toward  him  in  every  re- 
spect. He  added  that  the  people  in  general  did  her  full  justice 
on  this  head ;  that  if  her  popularity  with  the  Parisians  had  for  a 
moment  suffered  any  diminution  through  the  artifices  of  faction, 
the  cloud  had  been  blown  away ;  and  that  she  had  been  recently 
received  at  the  different  theatres  with  as  fervent  a  loyalty  as  had 
greeted  even  her  first  appearance. 

The  empress,  however,  was  so  uneasy  that  she  induced  her 
son,  the  Emperor  Joseph,  to  add  his  expostulations  to  hers ;  and 
he,  who  was  a  prince  of  considerable  shrewdness,  as  well  as  of  a 
high  idea  of  the  proprieties  of  his  rank,  wrote  her  a  long  letter  of 
remonstrance ;  imputing  with  great  truth  the  failings,  which  he 
pointed  out  with  sufficient  plainness,  to  a  facility  of  disposition 
which  made  her  indulgent  to  the  manoeuvres  of  those  whom  she 
admitted  to  her  friendship,  but  who  did  not  deserve  such  an  hon- 
or. He  even  spoke  of  the  society  which  she  had  gathered  round 
her,  as  calculated  to  prevent  him  from  performing  his  promise  of 


122  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

paying  her  a  visit ;  "  for  what  should  he  do  in  a  court  of  frivo- 
lous intriguers?"  And  he  concluded  by  urging  her  to  prevent 
these  false  friends  from  making  a  tool  of  her  for  the  gratification 
of  their  own  selfishness  and  rapacity ;  and  to  be  solicitous  for  no 
friendship  or  confidence  but  that  of  her  husband;  the  study  of 
whose  wishes  was  to  her  not  only  a  state  duty,  but  the  only  one 
which  would  make  her  permanently  happy,  and  secure  to  her 
the  lasting  affection  of  the  people. 

There  was,  however,  no  subject  on  which  Marie  Antoinette  was 
so  little  amenable  to  advice  as  the  choice  of  her  friends,  and  none 
on  which  she  more  required  it.  Above  all  the  frequenters  of  the 
court,  two  ladies  were  distinguished  by  her  especial  favor  —  the 
Princess  de  Lamballe  and  the  Countess  de  Polignac.  The  prin- 
cess, a  daughter  of  the  Prince  de  Carignan  in  Savoy,  having  been 
married  to  the  son  of  the  Due  de  Penthievre,  was  left  a  widow 
before  she  was  twenty  years  of  age.  She  had  been  originally  rec- 
ommended to  Marie  Antoinette  in  the  first  year  of  her  residence 
in  France,  partly  by  her  royal  birth,  and  partly  by  her  misfort- 
unes ;  and  the  attachment  which  the  dauphiness  at  once  con- 
ceived for  her  was  cemented  by  the  ardor  with  which  it  was  re- 
turned. In  many  respects  the  princess  well  deserved  the  favor 
with  which  she  was  regarded.  Her  temper  was  sweet  and  ami- 
able ;  her  character  singularly  truthful  and  sincere ;  and,  that  she 
might  never  be  separated  from  her  friend,  the  place  of  superin- 
tendent of  the  queen's  household  was  revived  for  her.  Some  cav- 
ilers  were  disposed  to  grumble  at  the  re-establishment  of  an  office 
which  had  been  suppressed  as  useless  and  costly ;  but  no  one 
could  allege  that  Madame  de  Lamballe  abused  the  royal  favor, 
and  her  share  in  the  calamities  of  later  days  justified  the  queen's 
choice  by  the  proof  it  afforded  of  the  princess's  unalterable  fidel- 
ity and  devotion. 

But  the  countess  was  a  very  different  character.  She  had,  in- 
deed, a  well-bred  air  of  good  humor,  but  that,  with  her  youth  (she 
was  but  twenty  years  of  age),  was  her  only  qualification  ;  for  her 
capacity  was  narrow,  her  disposition  selfish  and  grasping,  and  she 
was  so  inveterate  a  mano3uvrer,  that,  when  she  had  no  intrigues 
of  her  own  on  foot,  she  was  always  ready  to  lend  herself  to 
the  plots  of  others.  What  was  worse,  she  did  not  enjoy  an  un- 
tainted character.  The  name  of  the  Comte  de  Vaudreuil  was 
often  coupled  with  hers  in  the  scandals  of  the  court.  And  the 
qv\een,  since  she  could  hardly  be  ignorant  of  the  reports  which 


FALL  OF  TURGOT.  123 

were  circulated,  incurred,  by  the  marked  favor  which  she  showed 
to  the  countess,  the  imputation  of  shutting  her  eyes  to  the  frail- 
ties of  her  friends,  and  thus  showing  that  dissoluteness  was  not 
an  insuperable  barrier  to  her  partiality.  It  was  only  the  earnest 
remonstrance  of  Mercy  which  prevented  her  from  conferring  the 
place  of  lady  of  honor  on  the  countess;  but  she  allowed  her  to 
exert  a  pernicious  influence  over  her  in  many  ways,  for  the  count- 
ess was  unwearied  in  soliciting  appointments  and  pensions  for 
her  relatives ;  at  times  making  demands  in  such  numbers,  and  of 
so  exorbitant  a  character,  that  the  queen  .herself  was  forced  to  ad- 
mit the  impossibility  of  granting  them  all,  though  she  still  sought 
to  gratify  her  to  far  too  great  an  extent,  and  would  not  allow  the 
proved  insatiability  of  her  and  her  family  to  open  her  eyes  to  her 
real  character. 

It  was,  however,  a  far  more  mischievous  submission  to  the  in- 
fluence of  the  countess  and  her  coterie,  when  she  permitted  them 
to  prejudice  her  against  Turgot,  whom  she  had  more  than  once 
described  to  her  mother  as  an  upright  statesman,  and  who  had 
constantly  shown,  so  far  as  he  could  make  compliance  consistent 
with  his  duty  to  the  State,  a  sincere  desire  to  consult  her  wishes. 
But  as  the  Polignac  party  saw  in  his  prudence,  integrity,  and 
firmness  the  most  formidable  obstacle  to  their  project  of  using  the 
queen's  favor  to  enrich  themselves,  she  now  yielded  up  her  judg- 
ment to  their  calumnies.  Forgetting  her  former  praises  of  the 
minister's  integrity,  she  began  to  disparage  him  as  one  whose 
measures  caused  general  dissatisfaction,  and  at  last  she  pushed  her 
hostility  to  him  so  far  that  she  actually  tried  to  induce  Louis  not 
to  be  content  with  dismissing  him  from  office,  but  to  send  him 
as  a  prisoner  to  the  Bastille.*  That  she  could  not  avoid  feeling 
some  shame  at  the  part  which  she  had  acted  may  be  inferred 
from  the  pains  which  she  took  to  conceal  it  from  her  mother, 
whom  she  assured  that,  though  she  was  not  sorry  for  his  dismiss- 
al, she  had  in  no  degree  interfered  in  the  matter ;  but  "  her  con- 
duct and  even  her  intentions  were  well  known,  and  known  to  be 
far  removed  from  all  manoauvres  and  intrigues."f 

*  "Le  projet  de  la  reine  etait  d'exiger  du  roi  que  le  Sieur  Turgot  fut 
chasse,  meme  envoy6  a  la  Bastille  .  .  .  .  et  il  a  fallu  les  representations  les 
plus  fortes  et  les  plus  instantes  pour  arreter  les  effets  de  la  colere  de  la 
Reine." — Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa^  May  16th,  1776,  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  446. 

f  The  compiler  of  "  Marie  Antoinette,  Louis  XVI.,  et  La  Famille  Royale  " 
(date  April  24th,  1776)  has  a  story  of  a  conversation  between  the  king  and 


124  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

Unfortunately  the  embassador's  letters  tell  a  different  story. 
As  a  sincere  friend  as  well  as  a  loyal  servant  of  Marie  Antoinette, 
he  expresses  to  the  empress  his  deep  feeling  that,  "  as  the  comp- 
troller-general enjoyed  a  great  reputation  for  integrity,  and  was 
beloved  by  the  people,  it  was  a  melancholy  thing  that  his  dismiss- 
al should  be  in  part  the  queen's  work,"*  and  his  fear  that  her 
conduct  in  the  affair  may  "  hereafter  bring  upon  her  the  re- 
proaches of  the  king  her  husband,  and  even  of  the  entire  nation." 
The  foreboding  thus  uttered  was  but  too  sadly  realized.  She 
had  driven  from  her  husband's  councils  the  only  man  who  com- 
bined with  the  penetration  to  perceive  the  absolute  necessity  of  a 
large  reform  and  the  character  of  the  changes  required,  the  genius 
to  devise  them  and  the  firmness  to  carry  them  out. 

Thirteen  years  later,  a  variety  of  causes,  some  of  which  will  be 
unfolded  in  the  course  of  this  narrative,  had  contributed  to  irri- 
tate the  impatience  of  the  nation,  while  the  unskillfulness  of  the 
existing  minister  had  disarmed  the  royal  authority.  And  the  very 
same  reforms  which  would  now  have  been  accepted  with  general 
thankfulness  were  then  only  used  by  demagogues  as  a  pretext  for 
further  inflaming  the  minds  of  the  multitude  against  every  thing 
which  bore  the  slightest  appearance  of  authority,  even  against 
the  very  sovereign  who  had  granted  them.  France  and  all  Eu- 
rope to  this  day  feel  the  sad  effects  of  Marie  Antoinette's  inter- 
ference. 

She  had  given  fatal  proof  of  the  truth  of  the  words  wrung 
from  her  by  nervous  excitement  at  the  moment  of  the  late  king's 
death,  when  she  declared  that  Louis  and  she  were  too  young  to 
reign ;  and  the  best  excuse  that  can  be  found  for  her  is  that  she 
was  not  yet  one-and-twenty.  It  was  not,  however,  wholly  from 
submission  to  the  interested  malevolence  of  others  that  she  had 
shown  herself  the  enemy  of  the  great  financier  and  statesman. 
She  had  a  spontaneous  dislike  to  the  retrenchments  which  neces- 
sarily formed  a  great  portion  of  his  economical  measures  ;  not  as 

queen  which  illustrates  her  feeling  toward  the  minister.  She  had  just  come 
in  from  the  opera.  He  asked  her  "  how  she  had  been  received  by  the  Paris- 
ians ;  if  she  had  had  the  usual  cheers."  She  made  no  reply ;  the  king  un- 
derstood her  silence.  "  Apparently,  madame,  you  had  not  feathers  enough." 
"  I  should  have  liked  to  have  seen  you  there,  sir,  with  your  St.  Germain  and 
your  Turgot ;  you  would  have  been  rudely  hissed."  St.  Germain  was  the  min- 
ister of  war. 

*  Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa,  May  16th,  1776,  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  446. 


HER  SHARE  IN  TDRGOTS  DISMISSAL.  125 

interfering  with  the  indulgence  of  any  extravagant  tastes  of  her 
own,  but  as  restraining  her  power  of  gratifying  her  friends.  For 
she  was  entirely  impressed  with  the  idea  that  no  person  or  body 
could  have  any  right  to  call  in  question  the  king's  disposal  of  the 
national  revenue ;  and  that  there  was  no  prerogative  of  the  crown 
of  which  the  exercise  was  more  becoming  to  the  royal  dignity 
than  that  of  granting  pensions  or  creating  sinecures  with  no  lim- 
itations but  such  as  might  be  imposed  by  his  own  will  or  discre- 
tion. And  on  this  point  her  husband  fully  shared  her  feelings. 
"What,"  said  he,  on  one  occasion  to  Turgot,  who  was  urging 
him  to  refuse  an  utterly  unwarrantable  application  for  a  pension. 
"  What  are  a  thousand  crowns  a  year  ?"  "  Sire,"  replied  the  min- 
ister, "  they  are  the  taxation  of  a  village."  The  king  acquiesced 
for  the  moment,  but  probably  not  without  some  secret  wincing  at 
the  control  to  which  he  seemed  to  be  subjected ;  and  we  may, 
perhaps,  suppose  that  even  the  queen's  disapproval  of  the  minis- 
ter would  have  been  less  effectual  had  it  not  been  re-enforced  by 
the  king's  own  feelings.  : . : 

In  fact,  that  the  part  which  she  took  against  the  great  minister 
was  the  fruit  of  mere  inconsiderateness  and  ignorance  of  the  feel- 
ings and  necessities  of  the  nation,  and  that,  if  she  had  known  the 
depth  of  the  people's  distress,  and  the  degree  in  which  it  was 
caused  by  the  viciousness  of  the  whole  existing  system  of  gov- 
ernment, she  would  gladly  have  promoted  every  measure  which 
could  tend  to  their  relief,  we  may  find  abundant  proof  in  a  letter 
which  she  had  written  to  her  mother,  a  few  weeks  earlier.  Maria 
Teresa  had  spoken  with  some  harshness  of  the  French  fickleness. 
Marie  Antoinette  replies  :* 

"  You  are  quite  right  in  all  you  say  about  French  levity,  but  I 
am  truly  grieved  that  on  that  account  you  should  conceive  an 
aversion  for  the  nation.  The  disposition  of  the  people  is  very  in- 
consistent, but  it  is  not  bad.  Pens  and  tongues  utter  a  great 
many  things  which  are  not  in  their  heart.  The  proof  that  they 
do  not  cherish  hatred  is  that  on  the  very  slightest  occasion  they 
speak  well  of  one,  and  even  praise  one  much  more  than  one  de- 
serves. I  have  just  this  moment  myself  had  experience  of  this. 
There  had  been  a  terrible  fire  in  Paris  in  the  Palace  of  Justice, 
and  the  same  day  I  was  to  have  gone  to  the  opera,  so  I  did  not 
go,  but  sent  two  hundred  louis  to  relieve  the  most  pressing  cases 

*  January  14th,  1776,  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  414. 


126  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

of  distress  ;*  and  ever  since  the  fire,  the  very  same  people  who 
had  been  circulating  libels  and  songs  against  mef  have  been  ex- 
tolling me  to  the  skies." 

These  revelations  of  her  inmost  thoughts  to  her  mother  show 
how  real  and  warm  was  her  affection  for  the  French  as  a  nation, 
as  well  as  how  little  she  claimed  any  merit  for  her  endeavors  to 
benefit  them ;  though  a  subsequent  passage  in  the  same  letter  also 
shows  that  she  had  been  so  much  annoyed  by  some  pasquinades 
and  libels,  of  which  she  had  been  the  subject,  that  she  had  be- 
come careful  not  to  furnish  fresh  opportunities  to  her  enemies: 
"  We  have  had  here  such  a  quantity  of  snow  as  has  not  been  seen 
for  many  years,  so  that  people  are  going  about  in  sledges,  as  they 
do  at  Vienna.  We  were  out  in  them  yesterday  about  this  place ; 
and  to-day  there  is  to  be  a  grand  procession  of  them  through  Par- 
is. I  should  greatly  have  liked  to  be  able  to  go ;  but,  as  a  queen 
has  never  been  seen  at  such  things,  people  might  have  made  up 
stories  if  I  had  gone,  and  I  preferred  giving  up  the  pleasure  to 
being  worried  by  fresh  libels." 

She  was  still  as  eager  as  ever  in  the  pursuit  of  amusement,  and 
especially  of  novelties  in  that  way,  when  not  restrained  by  con- 
siderations such  as  those  which  she  here  mentions.  When  at 
Choisy,  she  gave  water  parties  on  the  river  in  boats  with  awnings, 
which  she  called  gondolas,  rowing  down  as  far  as  the  very  en- 
trance to  the  city.  It  was  not  quite  a  prudent  diversion  for  her, 
for  at  this  time  her  health  was  not  very  strong.  She  easily  caught 
cold,  and  the  reports  of  such  attacks  often  caused  great  uneasiness 
at  Vienna ;  but  the  watermen  were  highly  delighted,  looking  on 
her  act  in  putting  herself  under  their  care  as  a  compliment  to 
their  craft ;  and  some  of  them,  to  increase  her  pleasure,  jumped 
overboard  and  swam  about.  Their  well-meant  gallantry,  how- 
ever, was  nearly  having  an  unfavorable  effect ;  unaware  that  it 
was  not  an  accident,  she  thought  that  their  lives  were  in  danger, 
and  the  fear  for  them  turned  her  sick,  while  Madame  de  Lam- 

*  The  ground-floor  of  the  palace  was  occupied  by  the  shops  of  jewelers 
and  milliners,  some  of  whom  were  great  sufferers  by  the  fire. 

f  In  a  letter  written  at  the  end  of  1775,  Mercy  reports  to  the  empress  that 
some  of  Turgot's  economical  reforms  had  produced  great  discontent  among 
those  "  qui  trouvent  leur  interet  dans  le  desordre,"  which  they  had  vented  in 
scandalous  and  seditious  writings.  Many  songs  of  that  character  had  come 
out,  some  of  which  were  attributed  to  Beaumarchais,  "  le  roi  et  la  reine  n'y 
ont  point  et6  respectes." — December  17/A,  1775.  Araeth,  ii.,  p.  410. 


SHE  INDULGES  IN  PLAT.  127 

balle  fainted  away.  But  when  she  perceived  the  truth,  the  qualm 
passed  away,  and  she  rewarded  them  handsomely  for  their  duck- 
ing ;  begging,  however,  that  it  might  not  be  repeated,  and  assur- 
ing them  that  she  needed  no  such  proof  to  convince  her  of  their 
dutiful  and  faithful  loyalty. 

But  the  craving  for  excitement  which  was  bred  and  nourished 
by  the  continuance  of  her  unnatural  position  with  respect  to  her 
husband  in  some  parts  of  his  treatment  of  her,  was  threatening  to 
produce  a  very  pernicious  effect  by  leading  her  to  become  a  gam- 
bler. Some  of  those  ladies  whom  she  admitted  to  her  intimacy 
were  deeply  infected  with  this  fatal  passion ;  and  one  of  the  most 
mischievous  and  intriguing  of  the  whole  company,  the  Princess 
de  Guiraenee,  introduced  a  play-table  at  some  of  her  balls,  which 
she  induced  Marie  Antoinette  to  attend.  At  first  the  queen  took 
no  share  in  the  play ;  as  she  had  hitherto  borne  none,  or  only  a 
formal  part,  in  the  gaming  which,  as  we  have  seen,  had  long  been 
a  recognized  feature  in  court  entertainments;  but  gradually  the 
hope  of  banishing  vexation,  if  only  by  the  substitution  of  a  heav- 
ier care,  got  dominion  over  her,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1776  we 
find  Mercy  commenting  on  her  losses  at  lansquenet  and  faro,  at 
that  time  the  two  most  fashionable  round  games,  the  stakes  at 
which  often  rose  to  a  very  considerable  amount.  Though  she 
continued  to  indulge  in  this  unhealthy  pastime  for  some  time,  in 
Mercy's  opinion  she  never  took  any  real  interest  in  it.  She  prac- 
ticed it  only  because  she  wished  to  pass  the  time,  and  to  drive 
away  thought ;  and  because  the  one  accomplishment  which  she 
wanted  was  the  art  of  refusing.  She  even  carried  her  complai- 
sance so  far  as  to  allow  professed  gaming-table  keepers  to  be 
brought  from  Paris  to  manage  a  faro -bank  in  her  apartments, 
where  the  play  was  often  continued  long  after  midnight.  It  was 
not  the  least  evil  of  this  habit  that  it  unavoidably  left  the  king, 
who  never  quit  his  own  apartments  in  the  evening,  to  pass  a 
great  deal  of  time  by  himself ;  but,  as  if  to  make  up  for  his  cold- 
ness in  one  way,  he  was  most  indulgent  in  every  other,  and  seem- 
ed to  have  made  it  a  rule  never  to  discountenance  any  thing  which 
could  amuse  her.  His  behavior  to  her,  in  Mercy's  eyes,  seemed 
to  resemble  servility ;  "  it  was  that  of  the  most  attentive  court- 
ier," and  was  carried  so  far  as  to  treat  with  marked  distinction 
persons  whose  character  he  was  known  to  disapprove,  solely  be- 
cause she  regarded  them  with  favor.* 

*  Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa,  November  15th,  1776,  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  524. 


128  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

In  cases  such  as  these  the  defects  in  the  king's  character  con- 
tributed very  injuriously  to  aggravate  those  in  hers.  She  required 
control,  and  he  was  too  young  to  exercise  it.  He  had  too  little 
liveliness  to  enter  into  her  amusements;  too  little  penetration  to 
see  that,  though  many  of  them  —  it  may  be  said  all,  except  the 
gaming-table — were  innocent  if  he  partook  of  them,  indulgence 
in  them,  when  he  did  not  share  them,  could  hardly  fail  to  lead  to 
unfriendly  comments  and  misconstruction ;  though  even  his  pres- 
ence could  hardly  have  saved  his  queen's  dignity  from  some  hu- 
miliation when  wrangles  took  place,  and  accusations  of  cheating 
were  made  in  her  presence.  The  gaming-table  is  a  notorious  lev- 
eler  of  distinctions,  and  the  worst-behaved  of  the  guests  were  too 
frequently  the  king's  own  brothers ;  they  were  rude,  overbearing, 
and  ill-tempered.  The  Count  de  Provence  on  one  occasion  so 
wholly  forgot  the  respect  due  to  her,  that  he  assaulted  a  gentle- 
man in  her  presence ;  and  the  Count  d'Artois,  who  played  for 
very  high  stakes,  invariably  lost  his  temper  when  he  lost  his  mon- 
ey. Indeed,  the  queen  seems  to  have  felt  the  discredit  of  such 
scenes ;  and  it  is  probable  that  it  was  their  frequent  occurrence 
which  led  to  a  temporary  suspension  of  the  faro-bank ;  as  a  vio- 
lent quarrel  on  the  race-course  between  d'Artois  and  his  cousin, 
the  Duke  de  Chartres,  whom  he  openly  accused  of  cheating  him, 
for  a  while  disgusted  her  with  horse-races,  and  led  her  to  propose 
a  substitution  of  some  of  the  old  exercises  of  chivalry,  such  as 
running  at  the  ring;  a  proposal  which  had  a  great  element  of 
popularity  in  it,  as  being  calculated  to  lead  to  a  renewal  of  the 
old  French  pastimes,  which  seemed  greatly  preferable  to  the  ex- 
isting rage  for  copying,  and  copying  badly,  the  fashions  and  pur- 
suits of  England. 


EMBARRASSMENTS  OF  THE  QUEEN.  129 


CHAPTER  XIL 

Marie  Antoinette  finds  herself  in  Debt.  —  Forgeries  of  her  Name  are  com- 
mitted.— The  Queen  devotes  herself  too  much  to  Madame  de  Polignac  and 
others. — Versailles  is  less  frequented. — Remonstrances  of  the  Empress. — 
Volatile  Character  of  the  Queen. — She  goes  to  the  Bals  d'Opera  at  Paris. — 
She  receives  the  Duke  of  Dorset  and  other  English  Nobles  with  Favor. — 
Grand  Entertainment  given  her  by  the  Count  de  Provence. — Character  of 
the  Emperor  Joseph.  —  He  visits  Paris  and  Versailles. — His  Feelings  to- 
ward and  Conversations  with  the  King  and  Queen. — He  goes  to  the  Opera. 
— His  Opinion  of  the  Queen's  Friends. — Marie  Antoinette's  Letter  to  the 
Empress  on  his  Departure. — The  Emperor  leaves  her  a  Letter  of  Advice. 

BUT  this  addiction  to  play,  though  it  was  that  consequence  of 
the  influence  of  the  society  to  which  Marie  Antoinette  was  at 
this  time  so  devoted,  which  would  have  seemed  the  most  objec- 
tionable in  the  eyes  of  rigid  moralists,  was  not  that  which  ex- 
cited the  greatest  dissatisfaction  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
court.  Excessive  gambling  had  so  long  been  a  notorious  vice  of 
the  French  princes,  that  her  letting  herself  down  to  join  the 
gaming-table  was  not  regarded  as  indicating  any  peculiar  laxity 
of  principle ;  while  the  stakes  which  she  permitted  herself,  and 
the  losses  shft  incurred,  though  they  seemed  heavy  to  her  anxious 
German  friends,  were  as  nothing  when  compared  with  those  of 
the  king's  brothers.  Even  when  it  became  known  that  she  was 
involved  in  debt,  that  again  was  regarded  as  an  ordinary  occur- 
rence, apparently  even  by  the  king  himself,  who  paid  the  amount 
(about  .£20,000)  without  a  word  of  remonstrance,  merely  remark- 
ing that  he  did  not  wonder  at  her  funds  being  exhausted  since 
she  had  such  a  passion  for  diamonds.  For  a  great  portion  of  the 
debts  had  been  incurred  for  some  diamond  ear-rings  which  the 
queen  herself  did  not  wish  for,  and  had  only  bought  to  gratify 
Madame  de  Polignac,  who  had  promised  her  custom  to  the  jew- 
eler who  had  them  for  sale.  Marie  Antoinette  had  evidently  be- 
come less  careful  in  regulating  her  expenses,  till  she  was  awakened 
by  the  discovery  of  a  crime  which  she  herself  imputed  to  her 
own  carelessness  in  such  matters.  The  wife  of  the  king's  treas- 
urer had  borrowed  money  in  her  name,  and  had  forged  her  hand- 

9 


130  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

writing  to  letters  of  acknowledgment  of  the  loans.  The  fraud 
was  only  discovered  through  Mercy's  vigilance,  and  the  criminal 
was  at  once  seized  and  punished ;  but  it  proved  a  wholesome  les- 
son to  the  queen,  who  never  forgot  it,  though,  as  we  shall  see  here- 
after, if  others  remembered  it,  the  recollection  only  served  to  in- 
duce them  to  try  and  enrich  themselves  by  similar  knaveries. 

And  this  devotion  of  the  queen  to  the  society  of  the  Polignacs 
and  Guimenees,  "  her  society,"  as  she  sometimes  called  it,*  had 
also  a  mischievous  effect  in  diminishing  her  popularity  with  the 
great  body  of  the  nobles.  The  custom  of  former  sovereigns  had 
been  to  hold  receptions  several  evenings  in  each  week,  to  which 
the  men  and  women  of  the  highest  rank  were  proud  to  repair  to 
pay  their  court.  But  now  the  royal  apartments  were  generally 
empty,  the  king  being  alone  in  his  private  cabinet,  while  the  queen 
was  passing  her  time  at  some  small  private  party  of  young  peo- 
ple, by  her  presence  often  seeming  to  countenance  intrigues  of 
which  she  did  not  in  her  heart  approve,  and  giddy  conversation 
which  was  hardly  consistent  with  her  royal  position ;  though 
Mercy,  in  reporting  these  habits  to  the  empress,  adds  that  the 
queen's  own  demeanor,  even  in  the  moments  of  apparently  unre- 
strained familiarity,  was  marked  by  such  uniform  self-possession 
and  dignity,  that  no  one  ever  ventured  to  take  liberties  with  her, 
or  to  approach  her  without  the  most  entire  respect,  f 

It  was  hardly  strange,  then,  that  those  who  were  not  members 
of  this  society  should  feel  offended  at  finding  the  court,  as  it 
were,  closed  against  them,  and  should  cease  to  frequent  the  pal- 
ace when  they  had  no  certainty  of  meeting  any  thing  but  empty 
rooms.  They  even  absented  themselves  from  the  queen's  balls, 
which  in  consequence  were  so  thinly  attended  that  sometimes 
there  were  scarcely  a  dozen  dancers  of  each  sex,  so  that  it  was 
universally  remarked  that  never  within  the  memory  of  the  old- 
est courtiers  had  Versailles  been  so  deserted  as  it  was  this  win- 
ter ;  the  difference  between  the  scene  which  the  palace  presented 
now  from  what  had  been  witnessed  in  previous  seasons  striking 

*  "  Le  petit  nombre  de  ceux  que  la  Reine  appelle  '  sa  sociSte.' " — Mercy  to 
Maria  Teresa,  February  15th,  1777,  Arneth,  Hi.,  p.  18. 

f  "  II  faut  cependant  convenir  que  dans  ces  circonstances  si  rapproche'es 
de  la  familiarit6,  la  Reine,  par  un  maintien  qui  tient  a  son  esprit  et  a  son  ame, 
a  toujoure  su  imprimer  a  ceux  qui  1'entouraient  une  contenance  de  respect 
qui  contrebalancail  un  peu  la  Iibert6  des  propos." — Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa, 
Arneth,  ii.,  p.  620. 


ADMONITIONS  OF  MARIA   TERESA.  131 

the  queen  herself,  and  inclining  her  to  listen  more  readily  to  the 
remonstrances  which,  at  Mercy's  instigation,  the  empress  address- 
ed to  her.  Her  mother  pointed  out  to  her,  with  all  the  weight 
of  her  own  long  experience,  the  incompatibility  of  a  private  mode 
of  life,  such  as  is  suitable  for  subjects,  with  the  state  befitting  a 
great  sovereign ;  and  urged  her  to  recollect  that  all  the  king's 
subjects,  so  long  as  their  rank  and  characters  were  such  as  to  en- 
title them  to  admission  at  court,  had  an  equal  right  to  her  atten- 
tion ;  and  that  the  system  of  exclusiveness  which  she  had  adopted 
was  a  dereliction  of  her  duty,  not  only  to  those  who  were  thus  de- 
prived of  the  honors  of  the  reception  to  which  they  were  entitled, 
but  also  to  the  king,  her  husband,  who  was  injured  by  any  line  of 
conduct  which  tended  to  discourage  the  nobles  of  the  land  from 
paying  their  respects  to  him. 

In  the  midst  of  all  her  giddiness,  Marie  Antoinette  always  list- 
ened with  good  humor,  it  may  even  be  said  with  docility,  to  hon- 
est advice.  No  one  ever  in  her  rank  was  so  unspoiled  by  author- 
ity ;  and  more  than  one  conversation  which  she  held  with  the 
embassador  on  the  subject  showed  that  these  remonstrances,  re- 
enforced  as  they  were  by  the  undeniable  fact  of  the  thinness  of 
the  company  at  the  palace,  had  made  an  impression  on  her  mind ; 
though  such  impressions  were  as  yet  too  apt  to  be  fleeting,  and 
too  liable  to  be  overborne  by  fresh  temptations ;  for  in  volatile 
impulsiveness  she  resembled  the  French  themselves,  and  the  good 
resolutions  she  made  one  day  were  always  liable  to  be  forgotten 
the  next.  Nothing  as  yet  was  steady  and  unalterable  in  her  char- 
acter but  her  kindness  of  heart  and  graciousness  of  manner ;  they 
never  changed ;  and  it  was  on  her  genuine  goodness  of  disposition 
and  righteousness  of  intention  that  her  German  friends  relied  for 
producing  an  amendment  as  she  grew  older,  far  more  than  on  any 
regrets  for  the  past,  or  intentions  of  improvement  for  the  future, 
which  might  be  wrung  from  her  by  any  momentary  reflection  or 
vexation. 

If  Versailles  was  less  lively  than  usual,  Paris,  on  the  other  hand, 
had  never  been  so  gay  as  during  the  carnival  of  1777.  The  queen 
went  to  several  of  the  masked  balls  at  the  opera 'with  one  or  oth- 
er of  her  brothers-in-law  and  their  wives ;  the  king  expressing  his 
perfect  willingness  that  she  should  so  amuse  herself,  but  never  be- 
ing able  to  overcome  his  own  indolence  and  shyness  so  far  as  to 
accompany  her.  It  could  not  have  been  a  very  lively  amusement. 
She  did  not  dance,  but  sat  in  an  arm-chair  surveying  the  dancers, 


132  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

or  walked  down  the  saloon  attended  by  an  officer  of  the  body- 
guard and  one  lady  in  waiting,  both  masked  like  herself.  Oc- 
casionally she  would  grant  to  some  noble  of  high  rank  the  honor 
of  walking  at  her  side ;  but  it  was  remarked  that  those  whom 
she  thus  distinguished  were  often  foreigners;  some  English  no- 
blemen, such  as  the  Duke  of  Dorset  and  Lord  Strathavon  being 
especially  favored,  for  a  reason  which,  as  given  by  Mercy,  shows 
that  that  insular  stiffness  which,  with  national  self-complacency, 
Britons  sometimes  confess  as  a  not  unbecoming  characteristic, 
was  not  at  that  time  attributed  to  them  by  others ;  since  the  em- 
bassador  explains  the  queen's  preference  by  the  self-evident  fact 
that  the  English  gentlemen  were  the  best  dancers,  and  made  the 
best  figure  in  a  ball-room. 

But  all  the  other  festivities  of  this  winter  were  thrown  into  the 
shade  by  an  entertainment  of  extraordinary  magnificence,  which 
was  given  in  the  queen's  honor  by  the  Count  de  Provence  at  his 
villa  at  Brunoy.*  The  count  was  an  admirer  of  Spenser,  and  ap- 
peared to  desire  to  embody  the  spirit  of  that  poet  of  the  ancient 
chivalry  in  the  scene  which  he  presented  to  the  view  of  his  illus- 
trious guest  when  she  entered  his  grounds.  Every  one  seemed 
asleep.  Groups  of  cavaliers,  armed  cap-a-pie,  and  surrounded  by 
a  splendid  retinue  of  squires  and  pages,  were  seen  slumbering  on 
the  ground ;  their  lances  lying  by  their  sides,  their  shields  hang- 
ing on  the  trees  which  overshadowed  them ;  their  very  horses  re- 
posing idly  on  the  grass  on  which  they  cared  not  to  browse.  All 
seemed  under  the  influence  of  a  spell  as  powerful  as  that  under 
which  Merlin  had  bound  the  pitiless  daughter  of  Arthur;  but 
the  moment  that  Marie  Antoinette  passed  within  the  gates  the 
enchantment  was  dissolved ;  the  pages  sprung  to  their  feet,  and 
brought  the  easily  roused  steeds  to  their  awakened  masters. 
Twenty-five  challengers,  with  scarfs  of  green,  the  queen's  favorite 
color,  on  snow-white  chargers,  overthrew  an  equal  number  of  an- 
tagonists ;  but  no  deadly  wounds  were  given.  The  victory  of  her 
champions  having  been  decided,  both  parties  of  combatants  min- 
gled as  spectators  at  a  play,  and  afterward  as  dancers  at  a  grand 
ball  which  was  wound  up  by  a  display  of  fire-works  and  a  superb 
illumination,  of  which  the  principal  ornament  was  a  gorgeous 
bouquet  of  flowers,  in  many-colored  fire,  lighting  up  the  inscrip- 
tion "  Vive  Louis !  Vive  Marie  Antoinette !" 

*  Brunoy  is  about  fifteen  miles  from  Paris. 


VISIT  OF  THE  EMPEROR.  133 

At  last,  however,  the  carnival  came  to  an  end.  Not  too  soon 
for  the  queen's  good,  since  hunts  and  long  rides  by  day,  and  balls 
kept  up  till  a  late  hour  by  night,  had  been  too  much  for  her 
strength,*  so  that  even  indifferent  observers  remarked  that  she 
looked  ill  and  had  grown  thin.  But  even  had  Lent  not  inter- 
rupted her  amusements,  she  would  have  ceased  for  a  while  to  re- 
gard them,  her  whole  mind  being  now  devoted  to  preparing  for 
the  reception  of  her  brother,  the  Emperor  Joseph,  whose  visit, 
which  had  been  promised  in  the  previous  year,  was  at  last  fixed 
for  the  month  of  April.  It  was  anticipated  with  anxiety  by  the 
Empress  and  Mercy,  as  well  as  by  Marie  Antoinette.  He  was  a 
prince  of  a  peculiar  disposition  and  habits.  Before  his  accession 
to  the  imperial  throne,  he  had  been  kept,  apparently  not  greatly 
against  his  will,  in  the  background.  Nor,  while  his  father  lived, 
did  he  give  any  indications  of  a  desire  for  power,  or  of  any  capac- 
ity for  exercising  it ;  but  since  he  had  been  placed  on  the  throne 
he  had  displayed  great  activity  and  energy,  though  he  was  still, 
in  the  opinion  of  many,  more  of  a  philosopher — a  detractor  might 
have  said  more  of  a  pedant — than  of  a  statesman.  He  studied 
theories  of  government,  and  was  extremely  fond  of  giving  advice ; 
and  as  both  Louis  and  Marie  Antoinette  were  persons  who  in 
many  respects  stood  in  need  of  friendly  counsel,  Mercy  and  Maria 
Teresa  had  both  looked  forward  to  his  visit  to  the  French  court 
as  an  event  likely  to  be  of  material  service  to  both,  while  his  sis- 
ter regarded  it  with  a  mixed  feeling  of  hope  and  fear,  in  which, 
however,  the  pleasurable  emotions  predominated. 

She  was  not  insensible  to  the  probability  that  he  would  disap- 
prove of  some  of  her  habits ;  indeed,  we  have  already  seen  that 
he  had  expressed  his  disapproval  of  them,  and  of  some  of  her 
friends,  in  the  preceding  year ;  and  she  dreaded  his  lectures ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  she  felt  confident  that  a  personal  acquaintance 
with  the  court  would  prove  to  him  that  many  of  the  tales  to  her 
prejudice  which  had  reached  him  had  been  mischievous  exagger- 
ations, and  that  thus  he  would  be  able  to  disabuse  their  mother, 
and  to  tranquilize  her  mind  on  many  points.  She  hoped,  too, 
that  a  personal  knowledge  of  each  other  by  him  and  her  own  hus- 
band would  tend  to  cement  a  real  friendship  between  them ;  and 


*  "  Au  reste  il  est  temps  pour  la  santd  de  la  Reine  que  le  carnaval  finisse. 
On  remarque  qu'elle  s'en  altere,  et  que  sa  Majest6  maigrit  beaucoup." — Marie 
Therhe  d  Louis  XVL,  la  date  Fevrier  1, 1777,  p.  101. 


134  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

that  his  stronger  mind  would  obtain  an  influence  over  Louis, 
which  might  induce  him  to  rouse  himself  from  his  ordinary  apathy 
and  reserve,  and  make  him  more  of  a  man  of  the  world  and  more 
of  a  companion  for  her.  Lastly,  but  probably  above  all,  she 
thirsted  with  sisterly  affection  for  the  sight  of  her  brother,  and 
anticipated  with  pride  the  opportunity  of  presenting  to  her  new 
countrymen  a  relation  of  whom  she  was  proud  on  account  of  his 
personal  endowments  and  character,  and  whose  imperial  rank 
made  his  visit  wear  the  appearance  of  a  marked  compliment  to 
the  whole  French  nation. 

High-strung  expectations  often  insure  their  own  disappoint- 
ment, but  it  was  not  so  in  this  instance ;  though  the  august  visit- 
or's first  act  displayed  an  eccentricity  of  disposition  which  must 
have  led  more  people  than  one  to  entertain  secret  misgivings  as  to 
the  consequences  which  might  flow  from  a  visit  which  had  such 
a  commencement.  Like  his  brother  Maximilian,  he  too  traveled 
incognito,  under  the  title  of  the  Count  Falkenstein ;  and  he  per- 
sisted in  maintaining  his  disguise  so  absolutely  that  he  refused  to 
occupy  the  apartments  which  the  queen  had  prepared  for  him  in 
the  palace,  and  insisted  on  taking  up  his  quarters  with  Mercy  in 
Paris,  and  at  a  hotel,  for  .the  few  days  which  he  passed  at  Ver- 
sailles. 

However,  though  by  his  conduct  in  this  matter  he  to  some  ex- 
tent disappointed  the  hope  which  his  sister  had  conceived  of  an 
uninterrupted  intercourse  with  him  during  his  stay  in  France,  in 
every  other  respect  the  visit  passed  off  to  the  satisfaction  of  all 
the  parties  priacipally  concerned.  Fortunately,  at  their  first  in- 
terview Marie  Antoinette  herself  made  a  most  favorable  impres- 
sion on  him.  She  had  been  but  a  child  when  he  had  last  seen 
her.  She  was  now  a  woman,  and  he  was  wholly  unprepared  for 
the  matured  and  queenly  beauty  at  which  she  had  arrived.  He 
was  not  a  man  to  flatter  any  one,  but  almost  his  first  words  to  her 
were  that,  had  she  not  been  his  sister,  he  could  not  have  refrained 
from  seeking  her  hand  that  he  might  secure  to  himself  so  lovely 
a  partner ;  and  each  succeeding  meeting  strengthened  his  admi- 
ration of  her  personal  graces.  She,  always  eager  to  please,  was 
gratified  at  the  feeling  she  had  inspired ;  and  thus  an  affection- 
ate tone  was  from  the  first  established  between  them,  and  all  re- 
serve was  banished  from  their  conversation.  It  was  not  dimin- 
ished by  the  admonitions  which,  as  he  conceived,  his  age  and 
greater  experience  entitled  him  to  address  to  her,  though  some- 


JOSEPH'S  ADVICE  TO  THE  KINO.  135 

times  they  took  the  form  of  banter  and  ridicule,  sometimes  that 
of  serious  reproof  ;*  but  she  bore  all  his  lectures  with  unvarying 
good  humor,  promising  him  that  the  time  should  come  when  she 
would  make  the  amendment  which  he  desired ;  never  attempting 
to  conceal  from  him,  and  scarcely  to  excuse,  the  faults  of  which 
she  was  not  unconscious,  nor  the  vexations  which  in  some  particu- 
lars continually  disquieted  her. 

It  was,  at  least,  equally  fortunate  that  the  king  also  conceived 
a  great  liking  for  his  brother-in-law  at  first  sight.  His  character 
disposed  him  to  receive  with  eagerness  advice  from  one  who  had 
himself  occupied  a  throne  for  several  years,  and  whose  relation- 
ship seemed  a  sufficient  warrant  that  his  counsels  would  be  honest 
and  disinterested.  Accordingly  those  about  him  soon  remarked 
that  Louis  treated  the  emperor  with  a  cordiality  that  he  had  nev- 
er shown  to  any  one  else.  They  had  many  long  and  interesting 
conversations,  sometimes  with  Marie  Antoinette  as  a  third  party, 
sometimes  by  themselves.  Louis  discussed  with  the  emperor  his 
anxiety  to  have  a  family,  and  his  hopes  of  such  a  result ;  and 
Joseph  expressed  his  opinion  freely  on  all  subjects,  even  volun- 
teering suggestions  of  a  change  in  the  king's  habits ;  as  when  he 
recommended  him,  as  a  part  of  his  kingly  duty,  to  visit  the  dif- 
ferent provinces,  sea-ports,  cities,  and  manufacturing  towns  of  his 
kingdom,  so  as  to  acquaint  himself  generally  with  the  feelings 
and  resources  of  the  people.  Louis  listened  with  attention.  If 
there  was  any  case  in  which  the  emperor's  advice  was  thrown 
away,  it  was,  if  the  queen's  suspicions  were  correct,  when  he  rec- 
ommended to  the  king  a  line  of  conduct  adverse  to  her  influence. 

Mercy  had  told  the  emperor  that  Louis  was  devotedly  attached 
to  the  queen,  but  that  he  feared  her  at  least  as  much  as  he  loved 
her;  and  Joseph  would  have  desired  to  see  some  of  this  fear 
transferred  to  and  felt  by  her ;  and  showed  his  wish  that  the 
king  should  exert  his  legitimate  authority  as  a  husband  to  check 
those  habits  of  his  wife  of  which  they  both  disapproved,  and 
which  she  herself  did  not  defend.  But,  even  if  Louis  did  for  a 
moment  make  up  his  mind  to  adopt  a  tone  of  authority,  his  reso- 
lution faded  away  in  his  wife's  presence  before  her  superior  reso- 

*  Once  when  he  had  spoken  to  her  with  a  severity  which  alarmed  Mercy, 
who  feared  it  might  irritate  the  queen,  "  II  me  dit  en  riant  qu'il  en  avait  agi 
ainsi  pour  sender  Tame  de  la  reine,  et  voir  si  par  la  force  il  n'y  aurait  pas 
moyen  d'obtenir  plus  que  par  la  douceur." — Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa,  Arneth, 
iii.,  p.  79. 


136  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

lution ;  and  to  the  end  of  their  days  she  continued  to  be  the  lead- 
er, and  he  to  follow  her  guidance. 

It  need  hardly  be  told  that  so  august  a  visitor  had  entertain- 
ments given  in  his  honor.  The  king  gave  banquets  at  Versailles, 
the  queen  less  formal  parties  at  her  Little  Trianon,  though  gaye- 
ties  were  not  much  to  Joseph's  taste ;  and,  at  a  visit  which  his 
sister  compelled  him  to  pay  to  the  opera,  he  remained  ensconced 
at  the  back  of  her  box  till  she  dragged  him  forward,  and,  as  if 
by  main  force,  presented  him  to  the  audience.  The  whole  thea- 
tre resounded  with  applause,  expressed  in  such  a  way  as  to  mark 
that  it  was  to  the  queen's  brother,  fully  as  much  as  to  the  emper- 
or, that  the  homage  was  paid.  The  opera  was  "  Iphigenie,"  the 
chorus  in  which, "  Chantons,  celebrons  notre  reine,"  had  by  this 
time  been  almost  as  fully  adopted,  as  the  expression  of  the  na- 
tional loyalty,  as  "  God  save  the  Queen  "  is  in  England.  But  even 
on  its  first  performance  it  had  not  been  hailed  with  more  rapt- 
urous cheering  than  shook  the  whole  house  on  this  occasion ;  and 
Joseph  had  the  satisfaction  of  believing  that  his  sister's  hold  on 
the  affection  and  on  the  respect  of  the  Parisians  was  securely  es- 
tablished. 

He  was  less  pleased  at  the  races  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne, 
which  he  visited  the  next  day.  No  inconsiderable  part  of  Mer- 
cy's disapproval  of  such  gatherings  had  been  founded  on  the 
impropriety  of  gentlemen  appearing  in  the  queen's  presence  in 
top-boots  and  leather  breeches,  instead  of  in  court  dress ;  and  the 
emperor's  displeasure  appears  to  have  been  chiefly  excited  by  the 
hurry  and  want  of  stately  order  which  were  inseparable  from  the 
excitement  of  a  race-course,  and  which,  indifferent  as  he  was  to 
many  points  of  etiquette,  seemed  even  to  him  derogatory  to  the 
majesty  of  a  queen  to  witness  so  closely.  But  he  was  far  more 
dissatisfied  with  the  company  at  the  Princess  de  Guimenee's,  to 
which  the  queen,  with  not  quite  her  usual  judgment,  persuaded 
him  one  evening  to  accompany  her.  He  saw  not  only  gambling 
for  much  higher  stakes  than  could  be  right  for  any  lady  to 
venture  (the  queen  did  not  play  herself),  but  he  saw  those  who 
took  part  in  the  play  lose  their  tempers  over  their  cards  and 
quarrel  with  one  another ;  while  he  heard  the  hostess  herself  ac- 
cused of  cheating,  the  gamesters  forgetting  the  respect  due  to 
their  queen  in  their  excitement  and  intemperance.  He  spoke 
strongly  on  the  subject  to  Marie  Antoinette,  declaring  that  the 
apartment  was  no  better  than  a  common  gaming-house ;  but  was 


THE  EMPEROR'S  OPINION  OF  LOUIS.  13T 

greatly  mortified  to  see  that  his  reproofs  on  this  subject  were  re- 
ceived with  less  than  the  usual  attention,  and  that  she  allowed 
her  partiality  for  those  whom  she  called  her  friends  to  outweigh 
her  feeling  of  the  impropriety  of  disorders  of  which  she  could 
not  deny  the  existence. 

But  entertainments  and  amusements  were  not  permitted  to  en- 
gross much  of  his  time.  If  he  visited  the  king  and  queen  as  a 
brother,  he  was  visiting  France  and  Paris  as  a  sovereign  and  a 
statesman,  and  as  such  he  made  a  careful  inspection  of  all  that 
Paris  had  most  worthy  of  his  attention  —  of  the  barracks,  the 
arsenals,  the  hospitals,  the  manufactories.  And  he  acquired  a 
very  high  idea  of  the  capabilities  and  resources  of  the  country, 
though,  at  the  same  time,  a  very  low  opinion  of  the  talents  and 
integrity  of  the  existing  ministers.  Of  the  king  himself  he  con- 
ceived a  favorable  estimate.  Of  his  desire  to  do  his  duty  to  his 
people  he  had  always  been  convinced,  but,  in  a  long  conversa- 
tion which  he  had  held  with  him  on  the  character  of  the  French 
people,*  and  of  the  best  mode  of  governing  them,  in  which  Louis 
entered  into  many  details,  he  found  his  correctness  of  judgment 
and  general  knowledge  of  sound  principles  of  policy  far  superior 
to  his  anticipations,  though  at  the  same  time  he  felt  convinced 
that  his  want  of  readiness  and  decision,  and  his  timidity  in  action, 
would  always  render  and  keep  him  very  inferior  to  the  queen, 
especially  whenever  it  should  be  necessary  to  come  to  a  prompt 
decision  on  matters  of  moment 

After  a  visit  of  six  weeks,  he  quit  Paris  for  his  dominions 
in  the  Netherlands  at  the  end  of  May,  and  a  letter  of  the  queen 
to  her  mother  is  very  expressive  of  the  pleasure  which  she  had 
received  from  his  visit,  and  of  the  lasting  benefits  which  she 
hoped  to  derive  from  it. 

"Versailles,  June  14th. 

"  MY  DEAREST  MOTHER, — It  is  plain  truth  that  the  departure 
of  the  emperor  has  left  a  void  in  my  heart  from  which  I  can  not 
recover.  I  was  so  happy  during  the  short  time  of  his  visit  that 
at  this  moment  it  all  seems  like  a  dream.  But  one  thing  will 
never  be  a  dream  to  me,  and  that  is,  the  good  advice  and  counsel 
which  he  gave  me,  and  which  is  forever  engraven  in  my  heart. 

"  I  must  tell  my  dear  mamma  that  he  gave  me  one  thing  which 
I  earnestly  begged  of  him,  and  which  causes  me  the  greatest 

*  Arneth,  iii.,  p.  73. 


138  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

pleasure :  it  is  a  packet  of  advice,  which  he  has  left  me  in  writ- 
ing. At  this  moment  it  constitutes  my  chief  reading;  and,  if 
ever  I  could  forget  what  he  said  to  me,  which  I  do  not  believe  I 
ever  could,  I  should  still  have  this  paper  always  before  me,  which 
would  soon  recall  me  to  my  duty.  My  dear  mamma  will  have 
learned  by  the  courier,  who  started  yesterday,  how  well  the  king 
behaved  during  the  last  moments  of  my  brother's  visit.  I  can 
assure  you  that  I  thoroughly  understand  him,  and  that  he  was 
really  affected  at  the  emperor's  departure.  As  he  does  not  always 
recollect  to  pay  attention  to  forms,  he  does  not  at  all  times  show 
his  feelings  to  the  outer  world,  but  all  that  I  see  proves  to  me 
that  he  is  truly  attached  to  my  brother,  and  that  he  has  the  great- 
est regard  for  him  ;  and  at  the  moment  of  my  brother's  depart- 
ure, when  I  was  in  the  deepest  distress,  he  showed  an  attention  to, 
and  a  tenderness  for,  me  which  all  my  life  I  shall  never  forget, 
and  which  would  attach  me  to  him,  if  I  had  not  been  attached  to 
him  already. 

"  It  is  impossible  that  my  brother  should  not  have  been  pleased 
with  this  nation.  For  one  who,  like  him,  knows  how  to  estimate 
men,  must  have  seen  that,  in  spite  of  the  exceeding  levity  which 
is  inveterate  in  the  people,  there  is  a  manliness  and  cleverness  in 
them,  and,  speaking  generally,  an  excellent  heart,  and  a  desire  to 

do  right.     The  only  thing  is  to  manage  them  properly I 

have  this  moment  received  your  dear  letter  by  the  post.  What 
goodness  yours  is,  at  a  moment  when  you  have  so  much  business 
to  think  of,  to  recollect  my  name  day  !  It  overwhelms  me.  You 
offer  up  prayers  for  my  happiness.  The  greatest  happiness  that 
I  can  have  is  to  know  that  you  are  pleased  with  me,  to  deserve 
your  kindness,  and  to  convince  you  that  no  one  in  the  world  feels 
greater  affection  or  greater  respect  for  you  than  I." 

It  is  a  letter  very  characteristic  of  the  writer,  as  showing  that 
neither  time  nor  distance  could  chill  her  affection  for  her  family ; 
and  that  the  attainment  of  royal  authority  had  in  no  degree  ex- 
tinguished her  habitual  feeling  of  duty :  that  it' had  even  strength- 
ened it  by  making  its  performance  of  importance  not  only  to  her- 
self, but  to  others.  Nor  is  the  jealousy  for  the  reputation  of  the 
French  people,  and  the  desire  so  warmly  professed  that  they 
should  have  won  her  brother's  favorable  opinion,  less  becoming  in 
a  queen  of  France ;  while,  to  descend  to  minor  points,  the  neat- 
ness and  felicity  of  the  language  may  be  admitted  to  prove,  if  her 


THE  EMPEROR'S  ADVICE.  139' 

education  had  been  incomplete  when  she  left  Austria,  with  how 
much  pains,  since  her  progress  had  depended  on  herself,  she  had 
labored  to  make  up  for  its  deficiencies.  That  she  should  have 
asked  her  brother,  as  she  here  mentions,  to  leave  her  his  advice  in 
writing,  is  a  practical  proof  that  her  expression  of  an  earnest  de- 
sire to  do  her  duty  was  not  a  mere  form  of  words ;  while  the  res- 
olution which  she  avows  never  to  forget  his  admonitions  shows  a 
genuine  humility  and  candor,  a  sincere  desire  to  be  told  of  and  to 
amend  her  faults,  which  one  is  hardly  prepared  to  meet  with  in  a 
queen  of  one-and-twenty.  For  Joseph  did  not  spare  her,  nor  for- 
bear to  set  before  her  in  the  plainest  light  those  parts  of  her  con- 
duct which  he  disapproved.  He  told  her  plainly  that  if  in  France 
people  paid  her  respect  and  observance,  it  was  only  as  the  wife  of 
their  king  that  they  honored  her ;  and  that  the  tone  of  superiori- 
ty in  which  she  sometimes  allowed  herself  to  speak  of  him  was 
as  ill-judged  as  it  was  unbecoming.  He  hinted  his  dissatisfaction 
at  her  conduct  toward  him  as  her  husband  in  a  series  of  ques- 
tions which,  unless  she  could  answer  as  he  wished,  must,  even  in 
her  own  judgment,  convict  her  of  some  failure  in  her  duties  to 
him.  Did  she  show  him  that  she  was  wholly  occupied  with  him, 
that  her  study  was  to  make  him  shine  in  the  opinion  of  his  sub- 
jects without  any  thought  of  herself?  Did  she  stifle  every  wish 
to  shine  at  his  expense,  to  be  affable  when  he  was  not  so,  to  seem 
to  attend  to  matters  which  he  neglected?  Did  she  preserve  a 
discreet  silence  as  to  his  faults  and  weaknesses,  and  make  others 
keep  silence  about  them  also  ?  Did  she  make  excuses  for  him, 
and  keep  secret  the  fact  of  her  acting  as  his  adviser?  Did  she 
study  his  character,  his  wishes  ?  Did  she  take  care  never  to  seem 
cold  or  weary  when  with  him,  never  indifferent  to  his  conversa- 
tion or  his  caresses  ? 

The  other  matters  on  which  the  emperor  chiefly  dwells  were 
those  on  which  Mercy,  and,  by  Mercy's  advice,  Maria  Teresa  also, 
had  repeatedly  pressed  her.  But  these  questions  of  Joseph's  set 
plainly  before  us  some  of  his  young  sister's  difficulties  and  temp- 
tations, and,  it  must  be  confessed,  some  points  in  which  her  con- 
duct was  not  wholly  unimpeachable  in  discretion,  even  though  her 
solid  affection  for  her  husband  never  wavered  for  a  moment.  In 
some  respects  they  were  an  ill-assorted  couple.  He  was  slow,  re- 
served, and  awkward.  She  was  clever,  graceful:  lively,  and  look- 
ing for  liveliness.  Both  were  thoroughly  upright  and  conscien- 
tious ;  but  he  was  indifferent  to  the  opinions  formed  of  him,  while 


140  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

she  was  eager  to  please,  to  be  applauded,  to  be  loved.  The  temp- 
tation was  great,  to  one  so  young,  at  times  to  put  her  graces  in 
contrast  to  his  uncouthness ;  to  be  seen  to  lead  him  who  had  a 
right  to  lead  her ;  and,  though  we  may  regret,  we  can  not  greatly 
wonder,  that  she  had  not  always  steadiness  to  resist  it.  One  tie 
was  still  wanting  to  bind  her  to  him  more  closely ;  and  happily 
the  day  was  not  far  distant  when  that  was  added  to  complete  and 
rivet  their  union. 


MUTUAL  JEALOUSIES  OF  HER  FAVORITES.  141 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Impressions  made  on  the  Queen  by  the  Emperor's  Visit. — Mutual  Jealousies 
of  her  Favorites. — The  Story  of  the  Chevalier  d'Assas. — The  Terrace  Con- 
certs at  Versailles. — More  Inroads  on  Etiquette.— Insolence  and  Unpopu- 
larity of  the  Count  d'Artois. — Marie  Antoinette  takes  Interest  in  Politics. 
— France  concludes  an  Alliance  with  the  United  States. — Affairs  of  Bava- 
ria.— Character  of  the  Queen's  Letters  on  Politics. — The  Queen  expects  to 
become  a  Mother. — Voltaire  returns  to  Paris. — The  Queen  declines  to  re- 
ceive him. — Misconduct  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans  in  the  Action  off  Ushant. — 
The  Queen  uses  her  Influence  in  his  Favor. 

THE  emperor's  admonitions  and  counsels  had  not  been  alto- 
gether unfruitful.  If  they  had  not  at  once  entirely  extinguished 
his  sister's  taste  for  the  practices  which  he  condemned,  they  had 
evidently  weakened  it ;  even  though,  as  the  first  impression  wore 
off,  and  her  fear  of  being  overwhelmed  with  ennui*  resumed  its 
empire,  she  relapsed  for  a  while  into  her  old  habits,  it  was  no 
longer  with  the  same  eagerness  as  before,  and  not  without  fre- 
quent avowals  that  they  had  lost  their  attraction.  She  visibly 
drew  off  from  the  entanglements  of  the  coterie  with  which  she 
had  surrounded  herself.  The  members  had  grown  jealous  of  one 
another.  Madame  de  Polignac  feared  the  influence  of  the  supe- 
rior disinterestedness  of  the  Princess  de  Lamballe ;  Madame  de 
Guimenee,  who  was  suspected  of  a  want  of  even  common  hon- 
esty, grudged  every  favor  that  was  bestowed  on  Madame  de  Poli- 
gnac ;  and  their  rivalry,  which  was  not  always  suppressed  even  in 
the  queen's  presence,  was  not  only  felt  by  her  to  be  degrading  to 
herself,  but  was  also  wearisome. 

Throughout  the  autumn  her  occupations  and  amusements  were 
of  a  simpler  kind.  She  read  more,  and  agreeably  surprised  De 
Vermond  by  the  soundness  of  her  reflections  on  many  incidents 
and  characters  in  history.  Accounts  of  chivalrous  deeds  had  an 
especial  charm  for  her.  Hume  was  still  her  favorite  author. 

*  When  Mercy  remonstrated  with  her  on  her  relapse  into  some  of  her  old 
habits  from  which  at  first  she  seemed  to  have  weaned  herself,  "  La  seule  r6- 
ponse  que  j'aie  obtenu  a  6t6  la  crainte  de  s'ennuyer." — Mercy  to  Maria  Te- 
resa,  November  19th,  1777,  Arneth,  iii.,  p.  13. 


142  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

And  it  happened  that,  while  the  gallantry  of  the  loyal  champions 
of  Charles  I.  was  fresh  in  her  memory,  a  casual  conversation 
threw  in  her  way  an  opportunity  of  doing  honor  to  the  self-de- 
voted heroism  of  a  French  soldier  whom  the  proudest  of  the 
British  cavaliers  might  have  welcomed  as  a  brother,  but  whose 
valiant  and  self-sacrificing  fidelity  had  been  left  unnoticed  by  the 
worthless  sovereign  in  whose  service  he  had  perished,  and  by  his 
ministers,  who  thought  only  of  securing  the  favor  of  the  reign- 
ing mistress — favor  to  be  won  by  actions  of  a  very  different  com- 
plexion. 

In  the  Seven  Years'  War,  when  the  French  army,  under  the 
Marshal  De  Broglie,  and  the  Prussians,  under  Prince  Ferdinand  of 
Brunswick,  were  watching  one  another  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Wesel,  the  Chevalier  d'Assas,  a  captain  in  the  regiment  of  Au- 
vergne,  was  in  command  of  an  outpost  on  a  dark  night  of  October. 
He  had  strolled  a  little  in  advance  of  his  sentries  into  the  wood 
which  fronted  his  position,  when  suddenly  he  found  himself  sur- 
rounded and  seized  by  a  body  of  armed  enemies.  They  were  the 
advanced  guard  of  the  prince's  army,  who  was  marching  to  sur- 
prise De  Broglie  by  a  night  attack,  and  they  threatened  him  with 
instant  death  if  he  made  the  slightest  noise.  If  he  were  but  si- 
lent, he  was  safe  as  a  prisoner  of  war ;  but  his  safety  would  have 
been  the  ruin  of  the  whole  French  army,  which  had  no  suspicion 
of  its  danger.  He  did  not  for  even  a  moment  hesitate.  With  all 
the  strength  of  his  voice  he  shouted  to  his  men,  who  were  within 
hearing,  that  the  enemy  were  upon  them,  and  fell,  bayoneted  to 
death,  almost  before  the  words  had  passed  his  lips.  He  had  saved 
his  comrades  and  his  commander,  and  had  influenced  the  issue  of 
the  whole  campaign.  The  enemy,  whose  well-planned  enterprise 
his  self-devotion  had  baffled,  paid  a  cordial  tribute  of  praise  to  his 
heroism,  Ferdinand  himself  publicly  expressing  his  regret  at  the 
fate  of  one  whose  valor  had  shed  honor  on  every  brother-soldier ; 
but  not  the  slightest  notice  had  been  taken  of  him  by  those  in  au- 
thority in  France  till  his  exploit  was  accidentally  mentioned  in 
the  queen's  apartments.  It  filled  her  with  admiration.  She  ask- 
ed what  had  been  done  to  commemorate  so  noble  a  deed.  She 
was  told  "  nothing ;"  the  man  and  his  gallantry  had  been  alike 
forgotten.  "  Had  he  left  descendants  or  kinsmen  ?"  "  He  had  a 
brother  and  two  nephews ;  the  brother  a  retired  veteran  of  the 
same  regiment,  the  nephews  officers  in  different  corps  of  the 
army."  The  dead  hero  was  forgotten  no  longer.  Marie  Antoi- 


INVITATIONS  TO  THE  TRIANON.  143 

nette  never  rested  till  she  had  procured  an  adequate  pension  for 
the  brother,  which  was  settled  in  perpetuity  on  the  family ;  and 
promotion  for  both  the  nephews ;  and,  as  a  further  compliment, 
Clostercamp,  the  name  of  the  village  which  was  the  scene  of  the 
brave  deed,  was  added  forever  to  their  family  name.  The  pension 
is  paid  to  this  day.  For  a  time,  indeed,  it  was  suspended  while 
France  was  under  the  sway  of  the  rapacious  and  insensible  mur- 
derers of  the  king  who  had  granted  it ;  but  Napoleon  restored  it ; 
and,  amidst  all  the  changes  that  have  since  taken  place  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  country,  every  succeeding  ruler  has  felt  it  equally 
honorable  and  politic  to  recognize  the  eternal  claims  which  patri- 
otic virtue  has  on  the  gratitude  of  the  country. 

Marie  Antoinette  had  thus  the  honor  of  setting  an  example  to 
the  Government  and  the  nation.  Her  heart  was  getting  lighter 
as  the  vexations  under  which  she  had  so  long  fretted  began  to 
disappear.  The  late  card-parties  were  often  superseded,  through- 
out the  autumn,  by  concerts  on  the  terrace  at  Versailles,  where 
the  regimental  bands  were  the  performers,  and  to  which  all  the 
well-dressed  towns-people  were  admitted,  while  the  queen,  attend- 
ed by  the  princesses  and  her  ladies,  and  occasionally  escorted  by 
Louis  himself,  strolled  up  and  down  and  among  the  crowd,  dif- 
fusing even  greater  pleasure  than  they  themselves  enjoyed ;  Ma- 
rie Antoinette,  as  usual,  being  the  central  object  of  attraction, 
and  greeting  all  with  a  beaming  brightness  of  expression,  and  an 
affability  as  cordial  as  it  was  dignified,  which  deserved  to  win  all 
hearts.  One  of  the  entertainments  which  she  gave  to  the  king  at 
the  Little  Trianon  may  be  recorded,  not  for  any  unusual  sumpt- 
uousness  of  the  spectacle,  but  as  having  been  the  occasion  on 
which  she  made  one  more  inroad  on  the  established  etiquette  of 
the  court  in  one  of  its  most  unaccountable  restrictions :  to  such 
royal  parties  the  king's  ministers  had  never  been  regarded  as  ad- 
missible, but  on  this  night  Marie  Antoinette  commanded  the  com- 
pany of  the  Count  and  Countess  de  Maurepas.  And  the  inno- 
vation was  regarded  not  only  by  them  as  a  singular  favor,  but  by 
all  their  colleagues  as  a  marked  compliment  to  the  whole  body  of 
ministers,  and  served  to  increase  their  desire  to  consult  her  in- 
clinations in  every  matter  in  which  she  took  an  interest. 

And  the  esteem  which  she  thus  conciliated  was  at  this  time  not 
destitute  of  real  importance,  since  the  conduct  of  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  royal  family  excited  very  different  feelings.  The 
Count  de  Provence  was  generally  distrusted  as  intriguing  and  in- 


144  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

sincere.  And  the  Count  d'Artois,  whose  bad  qualities  were  of  a 
more  conspicuous  character,  was  becoming  an  object  of  general 
dislike,  not  so  much  from  his  dissipated  mode  of  life  as  from 
the  overbearing  arrogance  which  he  imparted  into  his  pleasures. 
No  rank  was  high  enough  to  protect  the  objects  of  his  displeas- 
ure from  his  insolence ;  even  ladies  were  not  safe  from  it  ;*  while 
his  extravagance  was  beyond  all  bounds,  since  he  considered  him- 
self entitled  to  claim  from  the  national  treasury  whatever  he 
might  require  in  addition  to  his  stated  income.  He  was  at  the 
same  time  repairing  one  castle,  that  of  St.  Germain,  which  the 
king  had  given  him ;  rebuilding  another  large  house  which  he 
had  purchased  in  the  same  neighborhood ;  and  pulling  down  and 
rebuilding  a  third,  named  Bagatelle,  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne, 
which  he  had  just  bought,  and  as  to  which  he  had  laid  an  enor- 
mous wager  that  it  should  be  completed  and  furnished  in  sixty 
days.  To  win  his  bet  nearly  a  thousand  workmen  were  employed 
day  and  night,  and,  as  the  requisite  materials  could  not  be  pro- 
vided at  so  short  a  notice,  he  sent  patrols  of  his  regiment  to  scour 
the  roads,  and  seize  every  cart  loaded  with  stones  or  timber  for 
other  employers,  which  he  thus  appropriated  to  his  own  use.  He 
did,  indeed,  pay  for  the  goods  thus  seized,  and  he  won  his  bet, 
but  when  the  princes  of  the  land  made  so  open  a  parade  of  their 
disregard  of  all  law  and  all  decency,  one  can  hardly  wonder  that 
men  in  secret  began  to  talk  of  a  revolution,  or  that  all  the  graces 
and  gentleness  of  the  queen  should  be  needed  to  outweigh  such 
grave  causes  of  discontent  and  indignation. 

As  the  new  year  opened,  affairs  of  a  very  different  kind  began 
to  occupy  the  queen's  attention.  On  political  questions,  the  ad- 
vice which  the  empress  gave  her  differed  in  some  degree  from 
that  of  her  embassador.  Maria  Teresa  was  an  earnest  politician, 
but  she  was  also  a  mother ;  and,  as  being  eager  above  all  things 
for  her  daughter's  happiness,  while  she  entreated  Marie  Antoinette 
to  study  politics,  history,  and  such  other  subjects  as  might  quali- 
fy her  to  be  an  intelligent  companion  of  the  king,  and  so  far  as 
or  whenever  he  might  require  it,  his  chief  confidante,  she  warned 
her  also  against  ever  wishing  to  rule  him.  But  Mercy  was  a 
statesman  above  every  thing,  and,  feeling  secure  of  being  able  to 
guide  the  queen,  he  desired  to  instill  into  her  mind  an  ambition 

*  See  Marie  Antoinette's  account  to  her  mother  of  his  quarrel  with  the 
Duchess  de  Bourbon  at  a  bal  de  f 'opera,  Arneth,  iii.,  p.  174. 


THE  AMERICAN  WAR.  145 

to  govern  the  king.  On  one  most  important  question  she  proved 
wholly  unable  to  do  so,  since  the  decision  taken  was  not  even  in 
accordance  with  the  judgment  or  inclination  of  Louis  himself; 
but  he  allowed  himself  to  be  persuaded  by  two  of  his  ministers 
to  adopt  a  course  against  which  Joseph  had  earnestly  warned  him 
in  the  preceding  year,  and  which,  as  he  had  been  then  convinced, 
was  inconsistent  alike  with  his  position  as  a  king  and  with  his 
interests  as  King  of  France. 

England  had  been  for  some  years  engaged  in  a  civil  war  with 
her  colonies  in  North  America,  and  from  the  commencement  of 
the  contest  a  strong  sympathy  for  the  colonists  had  been  evinced 
by  a  considerable  party  in  France.  Louis,  who,  for  several  rea- 
sons disliked  England  and  English  ideas,  was  at  first  inclined  to 
coincide  in  this  feeling  as  a  development  of  anti-English  princi- 
ples :  he  was  far  from  suspecting  that  its  source  was  rather  a  rev- 
olutionary and  republican  sentiment.  But  he  had  conversed  with 
his  brother-in-law  on  the  possibility  of  advantages  which  might 
accrue  to  France  from  the  weakening  of  her  old  foe,  if  French 
aid  should  enable  the  Americans  to  establish  their  independence. 
Joseph's  opinion  was  clear  and  unhesitating :  "  I  am  a  king ;  it  is 
my  business  to  be  royalist."  And  he  easily  convinced  Louis  that 
for  one  sovereign  to  assist  the  subjects  of  another  monarch  who 
were  in  open  revolt,  was  to  set  a  mischievous  example  which 
might  in  time  be  turned  against  himself.  But  since  his  return  to 
Vienna,  unprecedented  disasters  had  befallen  England ;  a  whole 
army  had  laid  down  its  arms ;  the  ultimate  success  of  the  Amer- 
icans seemed  to  every  statesman  in  Europe  to  be  assured,  and  the 
prospect  gave  such  encouragement  to  the  war  party  in  the  French 
cabinet  that  Louis  could  resist  it  no  longer.  In  February,  1778, 
a  treaty  was  concluded  with  the  United  States,  as  the  insurgents 
called  themselves;  and  France  plunged  into  a  war  from  which 
she  had  nothing  to  gain,  which  involved  her  in  enormous  ex- 
penses, which  brought  on  her  overwhelming  defeats,  and  which, 
from  its  effects  upon  the  troops  sent  to  serve  with  the  American 
army,  who  thus  became  infected  with  republican  principles,  had 
no  slight  influence  in  bringing  about  the  calamities  which,  a  few 
years  later,  overwhelmed  both  king  and  people. 

All  Marie  Antoinette's  language  on  the  subject  shows  that  she 
viewed  the  quarrel  with  England  with  even  greater  repugnance 
than  her  husband ;  but  it  is  curious  to  see  that  her  chief  fear  was 
lest  the  war  should  be  waged  by  land,  and  that  she  felt  much 

10 


146  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

greater  confidence  in  the  French  navy  than  in  the  army  ;*  though 
it  was  just  at  this  time  that  Voltaire  was  pointing  out  to  his 
countrymen  that  England  had  always  enjoyed  and  always  would 
possess  a  maritime  superiority  which  different  inquirers  might  at- 
tribute to  various  causes,  but  which  none  could  deny.f 

Even  before  the  conclusion  of  this  treaty,  however,  the  Ameri- 
cans had  found  sympathizers  in  France,  to  one  of  whom  some  of 
the  circumstances  of  the  war  which  they  were  now  waging  gave 
a  subsequent  importance  to  which  no  talents  or  virtues  of  his  own 
entitled  him.  The  Marquis  de  La  Fayette  was  a  young  man  of 
ancient  family,  and  of  fair  but  not  excessive  fortune.  He  was 
awkward  in  appearance  and  manner,  gawky,  red-haired,  and  sin- 
gularly deficient  in  the  accomplishments  which  were  cultivated  by 
other  youths  of  his  age  and  rank.J  But  he  was  deeply  imbued 
with  the  doctrines  of  the  new  philosophy  which  saw  virtue  in  the 
mere  fact  of  resistance  to  authority ;  and  when  the  colonists  took 
up  arms,  he  became  eager  to  afford  them  such  aid  as  he  could 
give.  He  made  the  acquaintance  of  Silas  Deane,  one  of  the  most 
unscrupulous  of  the  American  agents,  who  promised  him,  though 
he  was  only  twenty  years  of  age,  the  rank  of  major-general.  As 
he  was  at  all  times  the  slave  of  a  most  overweening  conceit,  he 
was  tempted  by  that  bait ;  and,  though  he  could  not  leave  France 
without  incurring  the  forfeiture  of  his  military  rank  in  the  army 
of  his  own  country,  in  April,  1777,  he  crossed  over  to  America  to 
serve  as  a  volunteer  under  Washington,  who  naturally  received 
with  special  distinction  a  recruit  of  such  political  importance. 
He  was  present  at  more  than  one  battle,  and  was  wounded  at 
Brandy  wine ;  but  the  exploit  which  made  him  most  conspicuous 
was  a  ridiculous  act  of  bravado  in  sending  a  challenge  to  Lord 

*  "  II  y  a  apparence  que  notre  marine  dont  on  s'occupe  depuis  longtcmps  va 
bientot  etre  en  activite.  Dieu  veuille  que  tous  ces  mouvements  ii'amenent 
pas  la  guerre  de  terre." — Marie  Antoinette  to  Maria  Teresa,  March  18th,  1777, 
Arneth,  iii.,  p.  174. 

f"  Jamais  les  Anglais  n'ont  eu  tant  de  superiorit6  sur  mer;  mais  ils  en 
eurent  eur  les  Francois  dans  tous  les  temps." — Siecle  de  Louis,  eh.  xxxv. 

J  The  Comte  de  la  Marck,  who  knew  him  well,  says  of  him,  "  II  etait  gauche 
dans  toutes  ses  manieres ;  sa  taille  dtait  Ires  dlevee,  ses  cheveux  tres  roux,  il 
dansait  sans  grace,  montait  mal  a  cheval,  et  les  jeunes  gens  avec  lesquels  il 
vivait  se  montraient  plus  adroits  que  lui  dans  les  diverses  exercises  d'alors  £ 
la  mode."  He  describes  his  income  as  "  une  fortune  de  1 20,000  livres  de  rente,'' 
a  little  under  £5000  a  year. —  Correspondence  entre  le  Comte  de  Mirabeau  ct  le 
Comte  de  la  Marck,  i.,  p.  47. 


AFFAIRS  OF  BAVARIA.  147 

Carlisle,  the  chief  of  the  English  Commissioners  who  in  1778 
were  dispatched  to  America  to  endeavor  to  re-establish  peace. 
However,  the  close  of  the  war,  which  ended,  as  is  well  known,  in 
the  humiliation  of  Great  Britain  and  the  establishment  of  the 
independence  of  the  colonies,  made  him  seem  a  hero  to  his  coun- 
trymen on  his  return.  The  queen,  always  eager  to  encourage  and 
reward  feats  of  warlike  enterprise,  treated  him  with  marked  dis- 
tinction, and  procured  him  from  her  husband  not  only  the  res- 
toration of  his  commission,  but  promotion  to  the  command  of  a 
regiment  ;*  kindness  which,  as  will  be  seen,  he  afterward  requited 
with  the  foulest  ingratitude. 

Nor  was  this  most  imprudent  war  with  England  the  only  ques- 
tion of  foreign  politics  which  at  this  time  interested  Marie  An- 
toinette. Her  native  land,  her  mother's  hereditary  dominions, 
were  also  threatened  with  war.  On  the  death  of  the  Elector  of 
Bavaria  at  the  end  of  1777,  Joseph,  who  had  been  married  to  his 
sister,  claimed  a  portion  of  his  territories ;  and  Frederick  of  Prus- 
sia, that "  bad  neighbor,"  as  Marie  Antoinette  was  wont  to  call 
him,  announced  his  resolution  to  resist  that  claim,  by  force  of 
arms  if  necessary.  If  he  should  carry  out  the  resolution  which 
he  had  announced,  and  if  war  should  in  consequence  break  out, 
much  would  depend  on  the  attitude  which  France  would  assume 
on  her  fidelity  to  or  disregard  of  the  alliance  which  had  now 
subsisted  more  than  twenty  years.  So  all-important  to  Austria 
was  her  decision,  that  Maria  Teresa  forgot  the  line  which,  as  a 
general  rule  of  conduct,  she  had  recommended  to  her  daughter, 
and  wrote  to  her  with  the  most  extreme  earnestness  to  entreat 
her  to  lose  no  opportunity  of  influencing  the  king's  council.  If 
it  depended  upon  Maria  Teresa,  the  claim  would  probably  not 
have  been  advanced ;  but  Joseph  had  made  it  on  the  part  of  the 
empire,  and,  when  it  was  once  made,  the  empress  could  not  with- 
hold her  support  from  her  son.  She  therefore  threw  herself  into 
the  quarrel  with  as  much  earnestness  as  if  it  had  been  her  own. 
Indeed,  since  Joseph  had  as  yet  no  authority  over  her  hereditary 
possessions,  it  was  only  by  her  armies  that  it  could  be  maintain- 
ed ;  and  in  her  letters  to  her  daughter  she  declared  that  Marie 
Antoinette  had  her  happinesss,  the  welfare  of  her  house,  and  of 

*  "  On  a  par!6  de  moi  dans  tous  les  cercles,  m€me  apr&s  que  la  bont6  de  la 
reine  m'cut  valu  le  regiment  du  roi  dragons." — Memoires  de  ma  Main,  Me- 
moires  de  La  Fayette,  i.,  p.  86. 


148  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

the  whole  Austrian  nation  in  her  hands ;  that  all  depended  on 
her  activity  and  affection.  She  knew  that  the  French  ministers 
were  inclined  to  favor  the  views  of  Frederick,  but  if  the  alliance 
should  be  dissolved  it  would  kill  her.*  Marie  Antoinette  grew 
pale  at  reading  so  ominous  a  denunciation.  It  required  no  art  to 
inflame  her  against  Frederick.  The  Seven  Years'  War  had  begun 
when  she  was  but  a  year  old ;  and  all  her  life  she  had  heard  of 
nothing  more  frequently  than  of  the  rapacity  and  dishonesty  of 
that  unprincipled  aggressor.  She  now  entered  with  eagerness 
into  her  mother's  views,  and  pressed  them  on  Louis  with  unre- 
mitting diligence  and  considerable  fertility  of  argument,  though 
she  was  greatly  dismayed  at  finding  that  not  only  his  ministers, 
but  he  himself,  regarded  Austria  as  actuated  by  an  aggressive  am- 
bition, and  compared  her  claim  to  a  portion  of  Bavaria  to  the  par- 
tition of  Poland,  which,  six  years  before,  had  drawn  forth  unwont- 
ed expressions  of  honorable  indignation  from  even  his  unworthy 
grandfather.  The  idea  that  the  alliance  between  France  and  the 
empire  was  itself  at  stake  on  the  question,  made  her  so  anxious 
that  she  sent  for  the  ministers  themselves,  pressing  her  views  on 
both  Maurepas  and  Vergennes  with  great  earnestness.  But  they, 
though  still  faithful  to  the  maintenance  of  the  alliance,  sympa- 
thized with  the  king  rather  than  with  her  in  his  view  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  claim  which  the  emperor  had  put  forward ;  and  they 
also  urged  another  argument  for  abstaining  from  any  active  inter- 
vention, that  the  finances  of  the  country  were  in  so  deplorable  a 
state  that  France  could  not  afford  to  go  to  war.  It  was  plain,  as 
she  told  them,  that  this  consideration  should  at  least  equally  have 
prevented  their  quarreling  with  England.  But,  in  spite  of  all  her 
persistence,  they  were  not  to  be  moved  from  this  view  of  the  true 
interest  of  France  in  the  conjuncture  that  had  arisen ;  and,  ac- 
cordingly, in  the  brief  war  which  ensued  between  the  empire  and 
Prussia,  France  took  no  part,  though  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
her  mediation  between  the  belligerents,  which  had  no  little  share 
in  bringing  about  the  peace  of  Teschen,f  was  in  a  great  degree 
owing  to  the  queen's  influence. 

*  "  La  lettre  ou  Votre  Majeste,  parlant  du  Roi  de  Prusse,  s'exprime  ainsi 

'cela  ferait  un  changement  dans  notre  alliance,  ce  qui  me  donnerait  la 

mort,'  j'ai  vu  la  reine  palir  en  me  lisant  cett  erticle."  —  Mercy  to  Maria 
Teresa,  February  18th,  1778,  Arneth,  iii.,  p.  170. 

f  See  Coxe's  "  House  of  Austria,"  ch.  cxxi.  The  war,  which  was  marked  by 
no  action  or  event  of  importance,  was  terminated  by  the  treaty  of  Teschen, 
May  10th,  1779. 


CONFIDENCE  OF  HUSBAND  AND  WIFE.  149 

For  she  was  not  discouraged  by  her  first  failure,  but  renewed 
her  importunities  from  time  to  time ;  and  at  last  did  succeed  in 
wringing  a  promise  from  her  husband  that  if  Prussia  should  in- 
vade the  Flemish  provinces  of  Austria,  France  would  arm  on  the 
empress's  side.  So  fully  did  the  affair  absorb  her  attention  that 
it  made  her  indifferent  to  the  gayeties  which  the  carnival  always 
brought  round.  She  did,  indeed,  as  a  matter  of  duty,  give  one 
or  two  grand  state  balls,  one  of  which,  in  which  the  dancers  of 
the  quadrilles  were  masked,  and  in  which  their  dresses  represent- 
ed the  male  and  female  costumes  of  India,  was  long  talked  of  for 
both  the  magnificence  and  the  novelty  of  the  spectacle ;  and  she 
attended  one  or  two  of  the  opera-balls,  under  the  escort  of  her 
brothers-in-law  and  their  countesses  ;  but  they  had  begun  to  pall 
upon  her,  and  she  made  repeated  offers  to  the  king  to  give  them 
up  and  to  spend  her  evenings  in  quiet  with  him.  But  he  was 
more  inclined  to  prompt  her  to  seek  amusement  than  to  allow  her 
to  sacrifice  any,*  even  such  as  he  did  not  care  to  partake  of ;  nev- 
ertheless, he  was  pleased  with  the  offer,  and  it  was  observed  by 
the  courtiers  that  the  mutual  confidence  of  the  husband  and  wife 
in  each  other  was  more  marked  and  more  firmly  established  than 
ever.  He  showed  her  all  the  dispatches,  consulted  her  on  all 
points,  and  explained  his  reasons  when  he  could  not  adopt  all  her 
views.  As  Marie  Antoinette  wrote  to  her  brother,  "If  it  were 
possible  to  reckon  wholly  on  any  man,  the  king  was  the  one  on 
whom  she  could  thoroughly  rely."f 

So  greatly,  indeed,  did  the  quarrel  between  Austria  and  Prussia 
engross  her,  that  it  even  occupied  the  greater  part  of  letters  whose 
ostensible  object  is  to  announce  prospects  of  personal  happiness 
which  might  have  been  expected  to  extinguish  every  other  con- 
sideration. In  one,  after  touching  briefly  on  her  health  and  hopes, 
she  proceeds : 

"  How  kind  my  dear  mamma  is,  to  express  her  approval  of  the 
way  in  which  I  have  conducted  myself  in  these  affairs  up  to  the 
present  time !  Alas !  there  is  no  need  for  you  to  feel  obliged  to 
me  ;  it  was  my  heart  that  acted  in  the  whole  matter.  I  am  only 
vexed  at  not  being  able  to  enter  myself  into  the  feelings  of  all 

*  "  R  n'a  pas  voulu  y  consentir,  et  a  toujours  ete  attentif  a  exciter  lui-meme 
la  reine  aux  choses  qu'il  jugeait  pouvoir  lui  6tre  agreables." — Mercy  to  Maria 
Teresa,  March  29th,  1778,  Arneth,  in.,  p.  177. 

f  Marie  Antoinette  to  Joseph  II.  and  Leopold  II.,  p.  21,  date  January  16th, 
1778. 


150          LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

these  ministers,  so  as  to  be  able  to  make  them  comprehend  how 
every  thing  which  has  been  done  and  demanded  by  the  authorities 
at  Vienna  is  just  and  reasonable.  But  unluckily  none  are  more 
deaf  than  those  who  will  not  hear ;  and,  besides,  they  have  such  a 
number  of  terms  and  phrases  which  mean  nothing,  that  they  be- 
wilder themselves  before  they  come  to  say  a  single  reasonable 
thing.  I  will  try  one  plan,  and  that  is  to  speak  to  them  both  in 
the  king's  presence,  to  induce  them,  at  least,  to  hold  language 
suitable  to  the  occasion  to  the  King  of  Prussia ;  and  in  good  truth 
it  is  for  the  interest  and  glory  of  the  king*  himself  that  I  am  anx- 
ious to  see  this  done ;  for  he  can  not  but  gain  by  supporting  allies 
who  on  every  account  ought  to  be  so  dear  to  him. 

"  In  other  respects,  and  especially  in  my  present  condition,  he 
behaves  most  admirably,  and  is  most  attentive  to  me.  I  protest 
to  you,  my  dear  mamma,  that  my  heart  would  be  torn  by  the  idea 
that  you  could  for  a  moment  suspect  his  good-will  in  what  has 
been  done.  No ;  it  is  the  terrible  weakness  of  his  ministers,  and 
his  own  great  want  of  self-reliance,  which  does  all  the  mischief ; 
and  I  ara  sure  that  if  he  would  never  act  but  on  his  own  judgment, 
every  one  would  see  his  honesty,  his  correctness  of  feeling,  and 
his  tact,  which  at  present  they  are  far  from  appreciating."! 

And  at  the  end  of  the  month  she  writes  again : 

"  I  saw  Mercy  a  day  or  two  ago :  he  showed  me  the  articles 
which  the  King  of  Prussia  sent  to  my  brother.  I  think  it  is  im- 
possible to  see  any  thing  more  absurd  than  his  proposals.  In 
fact,  they  are  so  ridiculous  that  they  must  strike  every  one  here ; 
I  can  answer  for  their  appearing  so  to  the  king.  I  have  not  been 
able  to  see  the  ministers.  M.  de  Vergennes  has  not  been  here 
[she  is  writing  from  Marly] ;  he  is  not  well,  so  that  I  must  wait 
till  we  return  to  Versailles. 

"  I  had  seen  before  the  correspondence  of  the  King  of  Prussia 
with  my  brother.  It  is  most  abominable  of  the  former  to  have 
sent  it  here,  and  the  more  so  since,  in  truth,  he  has  not  much  to 
boast  of.  His  imprudence,  his  bad  faith,  and  his  malignant  tem- 
per are  visible  in  every  line.  I  have  been  enchanted  with  my 
brother's  answers.  It  is  impossible  to  put  into  letters  more  grace, 
more  moderation,  and  at  the  same  time  more  force.  I  am  going 
to  say  something  which  is  very  vain ;  but  I  do  believe  that  there 
is  not  in  the  whole  world  any  one  but  the  emperor,  the  son  of  my 

*  Louis. 

f  Marie  Antoinette  to  Maria  Teresa,  May  16th,  Arneth,  iii.,  p.  200. 


SHE  IS  ABOUT  TO  BECOME  A  MOTHER.  151 

dearest  mother,  who  has  the  happiness  of  seeing  her  every  day, 
who  could  write  in  such  a  manner." 

There  is  no  trace  in  these  letters  of  the  levity  and  giddiness  of 
which  Mercy  so  often  complains,  and  which  she  at  times  did  not 
deny.  On  the  contrary,  they  display  an  earnestness  as  well  as  a 
good  sense  and  an  energy  which  are  gracefully  set  off  by  the  af- 
fection for  her  mother,  and  the  pride  in  her  brother's  firmness  and 
address  which  they  also  express.  With  respect  to  the  conduct  of 
Louis  at  this  crisis  we  may  perhaps  differ  from  her;  and  may 
think  that  he  rarely  showed  so  much  self-reliance,  the  general 
want  of  which  was  in  truth  his  greatest  defect,  as  when  he  pre- 
ferred the  arguments  of  Vergennes  to  her  entreaties.  But  if  her 
praises  of  the  emperor  are,  as  she  herself  terms  them,  vanity,  it  is 
the  vanity  of  sisterly  and  patriotic  affection,  which  can  not  but  be 
regarded  with  approval ;  and  we  may  see  in  it  an  additional  proof 
of  the  correctness  of  an  assertion,  repeated  over  and  over  again 
in  Mercy's  correspondence,  that,  whenever  Marie  Antoinette  gave 
the  rein  to  her  own  natural  impulses,  she  invariably  both  thought 
and  acted  rightly. 

In  one  of  the  extracts  which  have  just  been  quoted,  the  queen 
alludes  to  her  own  condition  ;  and  that,  in  any  one  less  unselfish, 
might  well  have  driven  all  other  thoughts  from  her  head.  For  the 
event  to  which  she  had  so  long  looked  forward  as  that  which  was 
wanted  to  crown  her  happiness,  and  which  had  been  so  long  de- 
ferred that  at  times  she  had  ceased  to  hope  for  it  at  all,  was  at  last 
about  to  take  place — she  was  about  to  become  a  mother.  Her 
own  joy  at  the  prospect  was  shared  to  its  full  extent  by  both  the 
king  and  the  empress.  Louis,  roused  out  of  his  usual  reserve, 
wrote  with  his  own  hand  to  both  the  empress  and  the  emperor, 
to  give  the  intelligence ;  and  Maria  Teresa  declared  that  she  had 
nothing  left  to  wish  for,  and  that  she  could  now  close  her  eyes  in 
peace.  And  the  news  was  received  with  almost  equal  pleasure  by 
the  citizens  of  Paris,  who  had  long  desired  to  see  an  heir  born  to 
the  crown ;  and  by  those  of  Vienna,  who  had  not  yet  forgotten 
the  fair  young  princess,  the  flower  of  her  mother's  flock,  as  they 
had  fondly  called  her,  whom  they  had  sent  to  fill  a  foreign  throne. 
Her  own  happiness  exhibited  itself,  as  usual,  in  acts  of  benevo- 
lence, in  the  distribution  of  liberal  gifts  to  the  poor  of  Paris  and 
Versailles,  and  a  foundation  of  a  hospital  for  those  in  a  similar 
condition  with  herself.* 

*  Weber,  i.,  p.  40. 


152  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

In  the  course  of  the  spring,  Paris  was  for  a  moment  excited 
even  more  than  by  the  declaration  of  war  against  England,  or 
than  by  the  expectation  of  the  queen's  confinement,  by  the  re- 
turn of  Voltaire,  who  had  long  been  in  disgrace  with  the  court, 
and  had  been  for  many  years  living  in  a  sort  of  tacit  exile  on  the 
borders  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva.  He  was  now  in  extreme  old 
age,  and,  believing  himself  to  have  but  a  short  time  to  live,  he 
wished  to  see  Paris  once  more,  putting  forward  as  his  principal 
motive  his  desire  to  superintend  the  performance  of  his  tragedy 
of  "  Irene."  His  admirers  could  easily  secure  him  a  brilliant  re- 
ception at  the  theatre ;  but  they  were  anxious  above  all  things  to 
obtain  for  him  admission  to  the  court,  or  at  least  a  private  inter- 
view with  the  queen.  She  felt  in  a  dilemma.  Joseph,  a  year  be- 
fore, had  warned  her  against  giving  encouragement  to  a  man 
whose  principles  deserved  the  reprobation  of  all  sovereigns.  He 
himself,  though  on  his  return  to  Vienna  he  had  passed  through 
Geneva,  had  avoided  an  interview  with  him,  while  the  empress 
had  been  far  more  explicit  in  her  condemnation  of  his  character. 
On  the  other  hand,  Marie  Antoinette  had  not  yet  learned  the  art 
of  refusing,  when  those  who  solicited  a  favor  had  personal  access 
to  her ;  and  she  had  also  some  curiosity  to  see  a  man  whose  lit- 
erary fame  was  accounted  one  of  the  chief  glories  of  the  nation 
and  the  age.  She  consulted  the  king,  but  found  Louis,  on  this 
subject,  in  entire  agreement  with  her  mother  and  her  brother. 
He  had  no  literary  curiosity,  and  he  disapproved  equally  the  les- 
sons which  Voltaire  had  throughout  his  life  sought  to  inculcate 
upon  others,  and  the  licentious  habits  with  which  he  had  exem- 
plified his  own  principles  in  action.  She  yielded  to  his  objec- 
tions, and  Voltaire,  deeply  mortified  at  the  refusal,*  was  left  to 
console  himself  as  best  he  could  with  the  enthusiastic  acclama- 
tions of  the  play-goers  of  the  capital,  who  crowned  his  bust  on 
the  stage,  while  he  sat  exultingly  in  his  box,  and  escorted  him 


*  One  of  his  admirers,  seeing  his  mortification,  said  to  him :  "  You  are  very 
simple  to  have  wished  to  go  to  court.  Do  you  know  what  would  have  hap- 
pened to  you  ?  I  will  tell  you.  The  king,  with  his  usual  affability,  would  have 
laughed  in  your  face,  and  talked  to  you  of  your  converts  at  Ferney.  The 
queen  would  have  spoken  of  your  plays.  Monsieur  would  have  asked  you 
what  your  income  was.  Madame  would  have  quoted  some  of  your  verses. 
The  Countess  of  Artois  would  have  said  nothing  at  all ;  and  the  count  would 
have  conversed  with  you  about  '  the  Maid  of  Orleans.'  " — Marie  Antoinette, 
Louis  XVI.  et  la  Famille  RoyaU,  p.  125,  March  3d. 


THE  FRENCH  ADMIRAL'S  MISCONDUCT.  153 

back  in  triumph  to  his  house ;  those  who  could  approach  near 
enough  even  kissing  his  garments  as  he  passed,  till  he  asked  them 
whether  they  designed  to  kill  him  with  delight;  as,  indeed,  in 
some  sense,  they  may  be  said  to  have  done,  for  the  excitement  of 
the  homage  thus  paid  to  him  day  after  day,  whenever  he  was  seen 
in  public,  proved  too  much  for  his  feeble  frame.  He  was  seized 
with  illness,  which,  however,  was  but  a  natural  decay,  and  in  a  few 
weeks  after  his  arrival  in  Paris  he  died. 

As  the  year  wore  on,  Marie  Antoinette  was  fully  occupied  in 
making  arrangements  for  the  child  whose  coming  was  expected 
with  such  impatience.  Her  mother  is  of  course  her  chief  confi- 
dante. She  is  to  be  the  child's  godmother ;  her  name  shall  be 
the  first  its  tongue  is  to  learn  to  pronounce ;  while  for  its  early 
management  the  advice  of  so  experienced  a  parent  is  naturally 
sought  with  unhesitating  deference.  Still,  Marie  Antoinette  is 
far  from  being  always  joyful.  Russia  has  made  an  alliance  with 
Prussia ;  Frederick  has  invaded  Bohemia,  and  she  is  so  overwhelm- 
ed with  anxiety  that  she  cancels  invitations  for  parties  which  she 
was  about  to  give  at  the  Trianon,  and  would  absent  herself  from 
the  theatre  and  from  all  public  places,  did  not  Mercy  persuade 
her  that  such  a  withdrawal  would  seem  to  be  the  effect,  not  of  a 
natural  anxiety,  but  of  a  despondency  which  would  be  both  un- 
royal and  unworthy  of  the  reliance  which  she  ought  to  feel  on 
the  proved  valor  of  the  Austrian  armies. 

The  war  with  England,  also,  was  an  additional  cause  of  solici- 
tude and  vexation.  The  sailors  in  whom  she  had  expressed  such 
confidence  were  not  better  able  than  before  to  contend  with  Brit- 
ish antagonists.  In  an  undecisive  skirmish  which  took  place  in 
July  between  two  fleets  of  the  first  magnitude,  the  French  admiral, 
D'Orvilliers,  had  made  a  practical  acknowledgment  of  his  inferior- 
ity by  retreating  in  the  night,  and  eluding  all  the  exertions  of  the 
English  admiral,  Keppel,  to  renew  the  action.  The  discontent  in 
Paris  was  great ;  the  populace  was  severe  on  one  or  two  of  the 
captains,  who  were  thought  to  have  taken  undue  care  of  their 
ships  and  of  themselves,  and  especially  bitter  against  the  Duke 
de  Chartres,  who  had  had  a  rear-admiral's  command  in  the  fleet, 
and  who,  after  having  made  himself  conspicuous,  before  D'Orvil- 
liers  sailed,  by  his  boasts  of  the  prowess  which  he  intended  to 
exhibit,  had  made  himself  equally  notorious  in  the  action  itself 
by  the  pains  he  took  to  keep  himself  out  of  danger.  On  his  re- 
turn to  Paris,  shameless  as  he  was,  he  scarcely  dared  show  his 


154  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

face,  till  the  Comte  d'Artois  persuaded  the  queen  to  throw  her 
shield  over  him.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  remain  in  the 
navy ;  but,  to  soften  his  fall,  the  count  proposed  that  the  king 
should  create  a  new  appointment  for  him,  as  colonel-general  of 
the  light  cavalry.  Louis  saw  the  impropriety  of  such  a  step: 
truly  it  was  but  a  questionable  compliment  to  pay  to  his  hussars, 
to  place  in  authority  over  them  a  man  under  whom  no  sailor 
would  willingly  serve.  Marie  Antoinette  in  her  heart  was  as  in- 
dignant as  any  one.  Constitutionally  an  admirer  of  bravery,  she 
had  taken  especial  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  fleet  and  in  the 
details  of  this  action.  She  had  honored  with  the  most  marked 
eulogy  the  gallantry  of  Admiral  du  Chaffault,  who  had  been  se- 
verely wounded ;  but  now  she  allowed  herself  to  be  persuaded 
that  the  duke's  public  disgrace  would  reflect  on  the  whole  royal 
family,  and  pressed  the  request  so  earnestly  on  the  king  that  at 
last  he  yielded.  In  outward  appearance  the  duke's  honor  was 
saved ;  but  the  public,  whose  judgment  on  such  matters  is  gener- 
ally sound,  and  who  had  revived  against  him  some  of  the  jests 
with  which  the  comrades  of  Luxemburg  had  shown  their  scorn 
of  the  Duke  de  Maine,  blamed  her  interference ;  and  the  duke 
himself,  by  the  vile  ingratitude  with  which  he  subsequently  re- 
paid her  protection,  gave  but  too  sad  proof  that  of  all  offenders 
against  honor  the  most  unworthy  of  royal  indulgence  is  a  cow- 
ard. 


THE  BIRTH  OF  A  PRINCESS.  155 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Birth  of  Madame  Royale. — Festivities  of  Thanksgiving. — The  Dames  de  la 
Halle  at  the  Theatre. — Thanksgiving  at  Notre  Dame. — The  King  goes  to 
a  Bal  d'Opera. — The  Queen's  Carriage  breaks  down. — Marie  Antoinette  has 
the  Measles. — Her  Anxiety  about  the  War. — Retrenchments  of  Expense. 

MERCY,  while  deploring  the  occasional  levity  of  the  queen's 
conduct,  and  her  immoderate  thirst  for  amusement,  had  constant- 
ly looked  forward  to  the  birth  of  a  child  as  the  event  which,  by 
the  fresh  and  engrossing  occupation  it  would  afford  to  her  mind, 
would  be  the  surest  remedy  for  her  juvenile  heedlessness.  And, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  absence  of  any  prospect  of  becoming  a  moth- 
er had,  till  recently,  been  a  constant  source  of  anxiety  and  vex- 
ation to  the  queen  herself — the  one  drop  of  bitterness  in  her  cup, 
which,  but  for  that,  would  have  been  filled  with  delights.  But 
this  disappointment  was  now  to  pass  away.  From  the  moment 
that  it  was  publicly  announced  that  the  queen  was  in  the  way  to 
become  a  mother,  one  general  desire  seemed  to  prevail  to  show 
how  deep  an  interest  the  whole  nation  felt  in  the  event.  In 
cathedrals,  monasteries,  abbeys,  universities,  and  parish  churches, 
masses  were  celebrated  and  prayers  offered  for  her  safe  delivery. 
In  many  instances,  private  individuals  even  gave  extraordinary 
alms  to  bring  down  the  blessing  of  Heaven  on  the  nation,  so  inter- 
ested in  the  expected  event.  And  on  the  19th  of  December,  1778, 
the  prayers  were  answered,  and  the  hopes  of  the  country  in  great 
measure  realized  by  the  birth  of  a  princess,  who  was  instantly 
christened  Marie  Therese  Charlotte,  in  compliment  to  the  em- 
press, her  godmother. 

The  labor  was  long,  and  had  nearly  proved  fatal  to  the  mother, 
from  the  strange  and  senseless  custom  which  made  the  queen's 
bed-chamber  on  such  an  occasion  a  reception-room  for  every  one, 
of  whatever  rank  or  station,  who  could  force  his  way  in.*  In 

*  "  La  cour  se  pr6cipite  pele-m£le  avec  la  foule,  car  l'6tiquette  de  France 
veut  que  tous  entrent  a  ce  moment,  que  nul  ne  soit  refuse^  et  que  le  spectacle 
soit  public  d'une  reine  qui  va  donner  un  heritier  a  la  couronne,  ou  seulement 
un  enfant  au  roi." — Mem.  de  G&ncourt,  p.  105. 


156  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

most  countries,  perhaps  in  all,  the  genuineness  of  a  royal  infant  is 
assured  by  the  presence  of  a  few  great  officers  of  state ;  but  on 
this  occasion  not  only  all  the  ministers,  with  all  the  members  of 
the  king's  or  of  the  queen's  household,  were  present  in  the  cham- 
ber, but  a  promiscuous  rabble  filled  the  adjacent  saloon  and  gal- 
lery, and,  the  moment  that  it  was  announced  that  the  birth  was 
about  to  take  place,  rushed  in  disorderly  tumult  into  the  apart- 
ment, some  climbing  on  the  chairs  and  sofas,  and  even  on  the 
tables  and  wardrobes,  to  obtain  a  better  sight  of  the  patient.  The 
uproar  was  great.  The  heat  became  intense ;  the  queen  fainted. 
The  king  himself  dashed  at  the  windows,  which  were  firmly 
closed,  and  by  an  unusual  effort  of  strength  tore  down  the  fasten- 
ings and  admitted  air  into  the  room.  The  crowd  was  driven  out, 
but  Marie  Antoinette  continued  insensible ;  and  the  moment  was 
so  critical  that  the  physician  had  recourse  to  his  lancet,  and  open- 
ed a  vein  in  her  foot.  As  the  blood  came  she  revived.  The  king 
himself  came  to  her  side,  and  announced  to  her  that  she  was  the 
mother  of  a  daughter. 

It  can  hardly  be  said  that  the  hopes  of  the  nation,  or  of  the 
king  himself,  had  been  fully  realized,  since  it  was  an  heir  to  the 
throne,  a  dauphin,  that  had  been  universally  hoped  for.  But  in 
the  general  joy  that  was  felt  at  the  queen's  safety  the  disappoint- 
ment of  this  hope  was  disregarded,  and  the  little  princess,  Madame 
Royale,  as  she  was  called  from  her  birth,  was  received  by  the  still 
loyal  people  in  the  same  spirit  as  that  in  which  Anne  Boleyn's 
lady  in  waiting  had  announced  to  Henry  VIII.  the  birth  of  her 
"  fair  young  maid :" 

"King  Henry.  Now  by  thy  looks 

I  guess  thy  message.     Is  the  queen  delivered  ? 
Say  ay ;  and  of  a  boy. 

"  Lady.  Ay,  ay,  my  liege, 

And  of  a  lovely  boy.  The  God  of  Heaven 
Both  now  and  ever  bless  her.  Tis  a  girl, 
Promises  boys  hereafter." 

And  a  month  before  the  empress  had  expressed  a  similar  sen- 
timent :  "  I  trust,"  she  wrote  to  her  daughter  in  November,  "  that 
God  will  grant  me  the  comfort  of  knowing  that  you  are  safely 
delivered.  Every  thing  else  is  a  matter  of  indifference.  Boys 
will  come  after  girls."*  And  the  same  feeling  was  shared  by  the 

*  Arneth,  iii.,  p.  270. 


GENERAL  REJOICINGS.  157 

Parisians  in  general,  and  embodied  by  M.  Imbert,  a  courtly  poet, 
whose  odes  were  greatly  in  vogue  in  the  fashionable  circles,  in  an 
epigram  which  was  set  to  music  and  sung  in  the  theatres. 

"  Pour  toi,  France,  un  dauphin  doit  naltre, 

line  Princesse  vieut  pour  en  etre  temoin, 
Sitot  qu'on  voit  une  grace  parattre, 
Croyez  que  1'amour  n'est  pas  loin."* 

Marie  Antoinette  herself  was  scarcely  disappointed  at  all.  When 
the  attendants  brought  her  her  babe,  she  pressed  it  to  her  bosom. 
"  Poor  little  thing,"  said  she,  "  you  are  not  what  was  desired,  but 
you  shall  not  be  the  less  dear  to  me.  A  son  would  have  belong- 
ed to  the  State ;  you  will  be  my  own :  you  shall  have  all  my  care, 
you  shall  share  my  happiness  and  sweeten  my  vexations."! 

The  Count  de  Provence  made  no  secret  of  his  joy.  He  was 
still  heir  presumptive  to  the  throne.  And,  though  no  one  shared 
his  feelings  on  the  subject,  for  the  next  few  weeks  the  whole 
kingdom,  and  especially  the  capital,  was  absorbed  in  public  re- 
joicings. Her  own  thankfulness  was  displayed  by  Marie  Antoi- 
nette in  her  usual  way,  by  acts  of  benevolence.  She  sent  large 
sums  of  money  to  the  prisons  to  release  poor  debtors ;  she  gave 
dowries  to  a  hundred  poor  maidens ;  she  applied  to  the  chief  of- 
ficers of  both  army  and  navy  to  recommend  her  veterans  worthy 
of  especial  reward ;  and  to  the  curates  of  the  metropolitan  par- 
ishes to  point  out  to  her  any  deserving  objects  of  charity ;  and 
she  also  settled  pensions  on  a  number  of  poor  children  who  were 
born  on  the  same  day  as  the  princess ;  one  of  whom,  who  owed 
her  education  to  this  grateful  and  royal  liberality,  became  after- 
ward known  to  every  visitor  of  Paris  as  Madame  Mars,  the  most 
accomplished  of  comic  actresses.  J 

One  portion  of  the  rejoicings  was  marked  by  a  curious  inci- 
dent, in  which  the  same  body  whose  right  to  a  special  place  of 
honor  at  ceremonies  connected  with  the  personal  happiness  of 
the  royal  family  we  have  already  seen  admitted — the  ladies  of 
the  fish-market — again  asserted  their  pretensions  with  triumphant 
success.  On  Christmas-eve  the  theatres  were  opened  gratuitous- 
ly, but  these  ladies,  who,  with  their  friends,  the  coal-heavers,  se- 
lected the  most  aristocratic  theatre,  La  Comedie  Franchise,  for 
the  honor  of  their  visit,  arrived  with  aristocratic  unpunctuality, 

*  Madame  de  Gampan,  ch.  ix.       f  Ibid.,  ch.  be.       J  Charnbrier,  i.,  p.  894. 


158  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

so  late  that  the  guards  stopped  them  at  the  doors,  declaring  that 
the  house  was  full,  and  that  there  was  not  a  seat  vacant.  They 
declared  that  in  any  event  room  must  be  made  for  them.  "  Who 
were  in  the  boxes  of  the  king  and  queen  ?  for  on  such  occasions 
those  places  were  theirs  of  right."  Even  they,  however,  were 
full,  and  the  guards  demurred  to  the  ladies'  claim  to  be  consid- 
ered, though  for  this  night  only,  as  the  representatives  of  royalty, 
and  to  have  the  existing  occupants  of  the  seats  demanded  turned 
out  to  make  room  for  them.  The  box-keeper  and  the  manager 
were  sent  for.  The  registers  of  the  house  confirmed  the  validity 
of  the  claim  by  former  precedents,  and  a  compromise  was  at  last 
effected.  Rows  of  benches  were  placed  on  each  side  of  the  stage 
itself.  Those  on  the  right  were  allotted  to  the  coal-heavers  as 
representatives  of  Louis ;  the  ladies  of  the  fish-market  sat  on  the 
left  as  the  deputies  of  Marie  Antoinette.  Before  the  play  was 
allowed  to  begin,  his  majesty  the  king  of  the  coal-heavers  read 
the  bulletin  of  the  day  announcing  the  rapid  progress  of  the 
queen  toward  recovery ;  and  then,  giving  his  hand  to  the  queen 
of  the  fish  -  wives,  the  august  pair,  followed  by  their  respective 
suites,  executed  a  dance  expressive  of  their  delight  at  the  good 
news,  and  then  resumed  their  seats,  and  listened  to  Voltaire's 
"  Zaire "  with  the  most  edifying  gravity.*  It  was  evident  that 
in  some  things  there  was  already  enough,  and  rather  more  than 
enough,  of  that  equality  the  unreasonable  and  unpractical  passion 
for  which  proved,  a  few  years  later,  the  most  pregnant  cause  of 
immeasurable  misery  to  the  whole  nation. 

But  the  demonstration  most  in  accordance  with  the  queen's 
own  taste  was  that  which  took  place  a  few  weeks  later,  when  she 
went  in  a  state  procession  to  the  great  national  cathedral  of  No- 
tre Dame  to  return  thanks ;  one  most  interesting  part  of  the  cere- 
mony being  the  weddings  of  the  hundred  young  couples  to  whom 
she  had  given  dowries,  who  also  received  a  silver  medal  to  com- 
memorate the  day.  The  gayety  of  the  spectacle,  since  they, 
with  the  formal  witnesses  of  their  marriage,  filled  a  great  part  of 
the  antechapel ;  and  the  blessings  invoked  on  the  queen's  head  as 
she  left  the  cathedral  by  the  prisoners  whom  she  had  released, 
and  by  the  poor  whose  destitution  she  had  relieved,  made  so  great 
an  impression  on  the  spectators,  that  even  the  highest  dignitaries 

"  *  Marie  Antoinette,  Louis  XVI.,  et  la  Famille  Royale,"  p.  147,  December 
24th,  1778. 


VIVACITY  OF  THE  KINO.  159 

of  the  court  added  their  cheers  and  applause  to  those  of  the  pop- 
ulace who  escorted  her  coach  to  the  gates  on  its  return  to  Ver- 
sailles. 

She  was  now,  for  the  first  time  since  her  arrival  in  France, 
really  and  entirely  happy,  without  one  vexation  or  one  forebod- 
ing of  evil.  The  king's  attachment  to  her  was  rendered,  if  not 
deeper  than  before,  at  least  far  more  lively  and  demonstrative  by 
the  birth  of  his  daughter;  his  delight  carrying  him  at  times  to 
most  unaccustomed  ebullitions  of  gayety.  On  the  last  Sunday 
of  the  carnival,  he  even  went  alone  with  the  queen  to  the  masked 
opera  ball,  and  was  highly  amused  at  finding  that  not  one  of  the 
company  recognized  either  him  or  her.  He  even  proposed  to  re- 
peat his  visit  on  Shrove-Tuesday ;  but  when  the  evening  came  he 
changed  his  mind,  and  insisted  on  the  queen's  going  by  herself 
with  one  of  her  ladies,  and  the  change  of  plan  led  to  an  incident 
which  at  the  time  afforded  great  amusement  to  Marie  Antoinette, 
though  it  afterward  proved  a  great  annoyance,  as  furnishing  a 
pretext  for  malicious  stories  and  scandal.  To  preserve  her  inco- 
gnito, a  private  carriage  was  hired  for  her,  which  broke  down  in 
the  street  close  by  a  silk-mercer's  shop.  As  the  queen  was  al- 
ready masked,  the  shop-men  did  not  know  her,  and,  at  the  request 
of  the  lady  who  attended  her,  stopped  for  her  the  first  hackney- 
coach  which  passed,  and  in  that  unroyal  vehicle,  such  as  certainly 
no  sovereign  of  France  had  ever  set  foot  in  before,  she  at  last 
reached  the  theatre.  As  before,  no  one  recognized  her,  and  she 
might  have  enjoyed  the  scene  and  returned  to  Versailles  in  the 
most  absolute  secrecy,  had  not  her  sense  of  the  fun  of  a  queen 
using  such  a  conveyance  overpowered  her  wish  for  concealment, 
so  that  when,  in  the  course  of  the  evening,  she  met  one  or  two 
persons  of  distinction  whom  she  knew,  she  could  not  forbear  tell- 
ing them  who  she  was,  and  that  she  had  come  in  a  hackney-coach. 

Her  health  seemed  less  delicate  than  it  had  been  before  her 
confinement.  But  in  the  spring  she  was  attacked  by  the  measles, 
and  her  illness,  slight  as  it  was,  gave  occasion  to  a  curious  passage 
in  court  history.  The  fear  of  infection  was  always  great  at  Ver- 
sailles, and,  as  the  king  himself  and  some  of  the  ladies  had  never 
had  the  complaint,  they  were  excluded  from  her  room.  But  that 
she  might  not  be  left  without  attendants,  four  nobles  of  the  court, 
the  Duke  de  Coigny,  the  Duke  de  Guines,  the  Count  Esterhazy, 
and  the  Baron  de  Besenval,  in  something  of  the  old  spirit  of  chiv- 
alry, devoted  themselves  to  her  service,  and  solicited  permission  to 


160  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

watch  by  her  bedside  till  she  recovered.  As  has  been  already 
seen,  the  bed-chamber  and  dressing-room  of  a  queen  of  France  had 
never  been  guarded  from  intrusion  with  the  jealousy  which  pro- 
tects the  apartments  of  ladies  in  other  countries,  so  that  the  pro- 
posal was  less  startling  than  it  would  have  been  considered  else- 
where, while  the  number  of  nurses  removed  all  pretext  for  scan- 
dal. Louis  willingly  gave  the  required  permission,  being  appar- 
ently flattered  by  the  solicitude  exhibited  for  his  queen's  health. 
And  each  morning  at  seven  the  sick-watchers*  took  their  seats  in 
the  queen's  chamber,  sharing  with  the  Countess  "of  Provence,  the 
Princesse  de  Lamballe,  and  the  Count  d'Artois  the  task  of  keep- 
ing order  and  quiet  in  the  sick-room  till  eleven  at  night.  Though 
there  was  no  scandal,  there  was  plenty  of  jesting  at  so  novel  an 
arrangement.  Wags  proposed  that  in  the  case  of  the  king  being 
taken  ill,  a  list  should  be  prepared  of  the  ladies  who  should  tend 
his  sick-bed.  However,  the  champions  were  not  long  on  duty : 
at  the  end  of  little  more  than  a  week  their  patient  was  convales- 
cent. She  herself  took  off  the  sentence  of  banishment  which  she 
had  pronounced  against  the  king  in  a  brief  and  affectionate  note, 
which  said  "  that  she  had  suffered  a  great  deal,  but  what  she  had 
felt  most  was  to  be  for  so  many  days  deprived  of  the  pleasure  of 
embracing  him."  And  the  temporary  separation  seemed  to  have 
but  increased  their  mutual  affection  for  each  other. 

The  Trianon  was  now  more  than  ever  delightful  to  her.  The 
new  plantations,  which  contained  no  fewer  than  eight  hundred  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  trees,  rich  with  every  variety  of  foliage,  were  be- 
ginning, by  their  effectiveness,  to  give  evidence  of  the  taste  with 
which  they  had  been  laid  out ;  while  with  a  charity  which  could 
not  bear  to  keep  her  blessings  wholly  to  herself,  she  had  set  apart 
one  corner  of  the  grounds  for  a  row  of  picturesque  cottages,  in 
which  she  had  established  a  number  of  pensioners  whom  age  or 
infirmity  had  rendered  destitute,  and  whom  she  constantly  visited 
with  presents  from  her  dairy  or  her  fruit-trees.  Roaming  about 
the  lawns  and  walks,  which  she  had  made  herself,  in  a  muslin 
gown  and  a  plain  straw  hat,  she  could  forget  that  she  was  a  queen. 
She  did  not  suspect  that  the  intriguers,  who  from  time  to  time 
maligned  her  most  innocent  actions,  were  misrepresenting  even 
these  simple  and  natural  pleasures,  and  whispering  in  their  secret 
cabals  that  her  very  dress  was  a  proof  that  she  still  clung  as  res- 

*  Garde-malades  was  the  name  given  to  them. 


HER  ANXIETIES  ABOUT  THE  WAR.  161 

olutely  as  ever  to  her  Austrian  preferences;  that  she  discarded 
her  silk  gowns  because  they  were  the  work  of  French  manufact- 
urers, while  they  were  her  brother's  Flemish  subjects  who  supplied 
her  with  muslins. 

But,  far  beyond  her  plantations  and  her  flowers,  her  child  was 
to  her  a  source  of  unceasing  delight.  She  could  be  carried  by 
her  side  about  the  garden  a  great  part  of  the  day.  For,  as  in  her 
anticipations  and  preparations  she  had  told  her  mother  long  be- 
fore, French  parents  kept  their  children  as  much  as  possible  in 
the  open  air,*  a  fashion  which  fully  accorded  with  her  own  no- 
tions of  what  was  best  calculated  to  give  an  infant  health  and 
strength.  And  before  the  babe  was  five  months  old,f  she  flat- 
tered herself  that  it  already  distinguished  her  from  its  nurses. 
That  nothing  might  be  wanting  to  her  comfort,  peace  was  re-es- 
tablished between  Austria  and  Prussia ;  and  if  at  this  time  the  war 
with  England  did  make  her  in  some  degree  uneasy,  she  yet  felt 
a  sanguine  anticipation  of  triumph  for  the  French  arms,  in  the 
event  of  a  battle  between  the  hostile  fleets;  a  result  of  which, 
when  the  antagonists  did  come  within  sight  of  each  other,  it  ap- 
peared that  the  French  and  Spanish  admirals  felt  far  less  confi- 
dent. Her  anxieties  and  hopes  are  vividly  set  forth  in  a  letter 
which,  in  the  course  of  the  summer,  she  wrote  to  her  mother, 
which  is  also  singularly  interesting  from  its  self-examination,  and 
from  the  substantial  proof  it  supplies  of  the  correctness  of  those 
anticipations  which  were  based  on  the  salutary  effect  which  her 
novel  position  as  a  mother  might  be  expected  to  have  upon  her 
character. 

"  Versailles,  August  16th. 

"  MY  DEAREST  MOTHER, — I  can  not  find  language  to  express  to 
my  dear  mamma  my  thanks  for  her  two  letters,  and  for  the  kind- 
ness with  which  she  expresses  her  willingness  to  exert  herself  to 
the  utmost  to  procure  us  peace.J  It  is  true  that  that  would  be  a 
great  happiness,  and  my  heart  desires  it  more  than  any  thing  in 
the  world ;  but,  unhappily,  I  do  not  see  any  appearance  of  it  at 

*  "  Du  moment  qu'ils  [les  enfants]  peuvent  etre  a  1'air  on  les  y  accoutume 
petit  a  petit,  et  ils  finissent  par  y  etre  presque  toujours ;  je  crois  que  c'est  la 
maniere  la  plus  saine  et  la  meilleure  des  les  clever." 

\  Letter  of  Marie  Antoinette  to  Maria  Teresa,  May  15th,  1779,  Arneth,  iii., 
p.  311. 

\  Maria  Teresa  had  offered  the  mediation  of  the  empire  to  restore  peace 
between  England  and  France. 

11 


162  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

present.  Every  thing  depends  on  the  moment.  Our  fleets,  the 
French  and  Spanish,  being  now  united,  we  have  a  considerable  su- 
periority.* 

"  They  are  now  in  the  Channel ;  and  I  can  not  without  great 
agitation  reflect  that  at  any  instant  the  whole  fate  of  the  war  may 
be  decided.  I  am  also  terrified  at  the  approach  of  September, 
when  the  sea  is  no  longer  practicable.  In  short,  it  is  only  on 
the  bosom  of  my  dearest  mamma  that  I  lay  aside  all  my  disquiet. 
God  grant  that  it  may  be  groundless,  but  her  kindness  encourages 
me  to  speak  to  her  as  I  think.  The  king  is  touched,  quite  as  he 
should  be,  with  all  the  service  you  so  kindly  propose  to  render 
him ;  and  I  do  not  doubt  that  he  will  be  always  eager  to  profit 
by  it,  rather  than  to  deliver  himself  up  to  the  intrigues  of  those 
who  have  so  frequently  deceived  France,  and  whom  we  must  re- 
gard as  our  natural  enemies. 

"  My  health  is  completely  re-established.  I  am  going  to  resume 
my  ordinary  way  of  life,  and  consequently  I  hope  soon  to  be  able 
to  announce  to  my  dearest  mother  fresh  news  such  as  that  of  last 
year.  She  may  feel  quite  re-assured  now  as  to  my  behavior.  I 
feel  too  strongly  the  necessity  of  having  more  children  to  be  care- 
less in  that.  If  I  have  formerly  done  amiss,  it  was  my  youth 
and  my  levity  ;  but  now  my  head  is  thoroughly  steadied,  and 
you  may  reckon  confidently  on  my  properly  feeling  all  my  duties. 
Besides  that,  I  owe  such  conduct  to  the  king  as  a  reward  for  his 
tenderness,  and,  I  will  venture  to  say  it,  his  confidence  in  me,  for 
which  I  can  only  praise  him  more  and  more. 

"  . . . .  I  venture  to  send  my  dear  mamma  the  picture  of  my 
daughter:  it  is  very  like  her.  The  dear  little  thing  begins  to 
walk  very  well  in  her  leading-strings.  She  has  been  able  to  say 
"  papa  "  for  some  days.  Her  teeth  have  not  yet  come  through, 
but  we  can  feel  them  all.  I  am  very  glad  that  her  first  word  has 

*  Spain  had  recently  entered  into  the  alliance  against  England  in  the  hope 
of  recovering  Gibraltar.  And  just  at  the  date  of  this  letter  the  combined 
fleet  of  sixty-six  sail  of  the  line  sailed  into  the  Channel,  while  a  French  army 
of  60,000  men  was  waiting  at  St.  Malo  to  invade  England  so  soon  as  the  Brit- 
ish Channel  fleet  should  have  been  defeated ;  but,  though  Sir  Charles  Hardy 
had  only  forty  sail  under  his  orders,  D'Orvilliers  and  his  Spanish  colleague 
retreated  before  him,  and  at  the  beginning  of  September,  from  fear  of  the  equi- 
noctial gales,  of  which  the  queen  here  speaks  with  such  alarm,  retired  to  their 
own  harbors,  without  even  venturing  to  come  to  action  with  a  foe  of  scarcely 
two-thirds  of  their  own  strength.  See  the  author's  "  History  of  the  British 
Xavy,"  ch.  xiv. 


HER  INFLUENCE  ON  PUBLIC  AFFAIRS.  163 

been  her  father's  name.  It  is  one  more  tie  for  him.  He  behaves 
to  me  most  admirably,  and  nothing  could  be  wanting  to  make 
me  love  him  more.  My  dear  mamma  will  forgive  my  twaddling 
about  the  little  one ;  but  she  is  so  kind  that  sometimes  I  abuse 
her  kindness." 

It  was  well  for  Marie  Antoinette's  happiness  that  her  husband 
was  one  in  whom,  as  we  have  seen  that  she  told  her  mother,  she 
could  feel  entire  confidence,  for  during  her  seclusion  in  the  mea- 
sles the  intriguers  of  the  court  had  ventured  to  try  and  work 
upon  him.  Mercy  had  reason  to  suspect  that  some  were  even 
wicked  enough  to  desire  to  influence  him  against  his  wife  by  the 
same  means  by  which  the  Duke  de  Richelieu  had  formerly  alien- 
ated his  grandfather  from  Marie  Leczinska;  and  the  queen  her- 
self received  proof  positive  that  Maurepas,  in  spite  of  her  civili- 
ties to  him  and  his  countess,  had  become  jealous  of  her  political 
influence,  and  had  endeavored  to  prevent  his  consulting  her  on 
public  affairs.  But  all  manreuvres  intended  to  disturb  the  con- 
jugal felicity  of  the  royal  pair  were  harmless  against  the  honest 
fidelity  of  the  king,  the  graceful  affection  of  the  queen,  and  the 
firm  confidence  of  each  in  the  other.  The  people  generally  felt 
that  thfe  influence  which  it  was  now  notorious  that  the  queen  did 
exert  on  public  affairs  was  a  salutary  one ;  and  great  satisfaction 
was  expressed  when  it  became  known  in  the  autumn  that  the  usual 
visit  to  Fontainebleau  was  given  up,  partly  as  being  costly,  and 
therefore  undesirable  while  the  nation  had  need  to  concentrate 
all  its  resources  on  the  effective  prosecution  of  the  war,  and  part- 
ly that  the  king  might  be  always  within  reach  of  his  ministers 
in  the  event  of  any  intelligence  of  importance  arriving  which  re- 
quired prompt  decision, 

Her  letters  to  her  mother  at  this  time  show  how  entirely  her 
whole  attention  was  engrossed  by  the  war ;  and,  at  the  same  time, 
with  what  wise  earnestness  she  desired  the  re-establishment  of 
peace.  Even  some  gleams  of  success  which  had  attended  the 
French  arms  in  the  West  Indies,  where  the  Marquis  de  Bouille, 
the  most  skillful  soldier  of  whom  France  at  that  time  could  boast, 
took  one  or  two  of  the  British  islands,  and  the  Count  d'Estaing, 
whose  fleet  of  thirty-six  sail  was  for  a  short  time  far  superior  to 
the  English  force  in  that  quarter,  captured  one  or  two  more,  did 
not  diminish  her  eagerness  for  a  cessation  of  the  war.  Thougli 
it  is  curious  to  see  that  she  had  become  so  deeply  imbued  with 
the  principles  of  statesmanship  with  which  M.  Necker,  the  present 


164  LIFE  OF  MAMIE  ANTOINETTE. 

financial  minister,  was  seeking  to  inspire  the  nation,  that  her  ob- 
jections to  the  continuance  of  the  war  turned  chiefly  on  the  de- 
gree in  which  it  affected  the  revenue  and  expenditure  of  the  king- 
dom. She  evidently  sympathizes  in  the  disappointment  which, 
as  she  reports  to  the  empress,  is  generally  felt  by  the  public  at 
the  mismanagement  of  the  admiral,  M.  d'Orvilliers,  who,  with 
forces  so  superior  to  those  of  the  English,  has  neither  been  able 
to  fall  in  with  them  so  as  to  give  them  battle,  nor  to  hinder  any 
of  their  merchantmen  from  reaching  their  harbors  in  safety.  As 
it  is,  he  will  have  spent  a  great  deal  of  money  in  doing  nothing."* 
And  a  month  later  she  repeats  the  complaints.f  "  The  king  and 
she  have  renounced  the  journey  to  Fontainebleau  because  of  the 
expenses  of  the  war ;  and  also  that  they  may  be  in  the  way  to  re- 
ceive earlier  intelligence  from  the  army.  But  the  fleet  has  not 
been  able  to  fall  in  with  the  English,  and  has  done  nothing  at  all. 
It  is  a  campaign  lost,  and  one  which  has  cost  a  great  deal  of  mon- 
ey. What  is  still  more  afflicting  is,  that  disease  has  broken  out 
on  board  the  ships,  and  has  caused  great  havoc ;  and  the  dysen- 
tery, which  is  raging  as  an  epidemic  in  Brittany  and  Normandy, 
has  attacked  the  land  force  also,  which  was  intended  to  embark 
for  England I  greatly  fear,"  she  proceeds,  "  that  these  mis- 
fortunes of  ours  will  render  the  English  difficult  to  treat  with,  and 
may  prevent  proposals  of  peace,  of  which  I  see  no  immediate 
prospect.  I  am  constantly  persuaded  that  if  the  king  should  re- 
quire a  mediation,  the  intrigues  of  the  King  of  Prussia  will  fail, 
and  will  not  prevent  the  king  from  availing  himself  of  the  offers 
of  my  dear  mamma.  I  shall  take  care  never  to  lose  sight  of  this 
object,  which  is  of  such  interest  to  the  whole  happiness  of  my 
life."  So  full  is  her  mind  of  the  war,  that  four  or  five  words  in 
each  letter  to  report  that  "  her  daughter  is  in  perfect  health,"  or 
that  "  she  has  cut  four  teeth,"  are  all  that  she  can  spare  for  that 
subject,  generally  of  such  engrossing  interest  to  herself  and  the 
empress ;  while,  before  the  end  of  the  year,  we  find  her  taking 
even  the  domestic  troubles  of  England  into  her  calculations,!  an^ 
speculating  on  the  degree  in  which  the  aspect  of  affairs  in  Ireland 
may  affect  the  great  preparations  which  the  English  ministers  are 
making  for  the  next  campaign. 

The  mere  habit  of  devoting  so  much  consideration  to  affairs  of 

*  Letter  of  September  15th.  f  Letter  of  October  14th. 

i  Letter  of  November  16th. 


SHE  STUDIES  POLITICS.  166 

this  kind  was  beneficial  as  tending  to  mature  and  develop  her 
capacity.  She  was  rapidly  learning  to  take  large  views  of  polit- 
ical questions,  even  if  they  were  not  always  correct.  And  the 
acuteness  and  earnestness  of  her  comments  on  them  daily  in- 
creased her  influence  over  both  the  king  and  the  ministers,  so  that 
in  the  course  of  the  autumn  Mercy  could  assure  the  empress* 
that  "the  king's  complaisance  toward  her  increased  every  day,'1 
that  "  he  made  it  his  study  to  anticipate  all  her  wishes,  and  that 
this  attention  showed  itself  in  every  kind  of  detail,"  while  Maure- 
pas  also  was  unable  to  conceal  from  himself  that  her  voice  always 
prevailed  "  in  every  case  in  which  she  chose  to  exert  a  decisive 
will,"  and  accordingly  "bent  himself  very  prudently"  before  a 
power  which  he  had  no  means  of  resisting.  So  solicitous  indeed 
did  the  whole  council  show  itself  to  please  her,  that  when  the 
king,  who  was  aware  that  her  allowance,  in  spite  of  its  recent  in- 
crease, was  insufficient  to  defray  the  charges  to  which  she  was 
liable,  proposed  to  double  it,  Necker  himself,  with  all  his  zeal  for 
economy  and  retrenchment,  eagerly  embraced  the  suggestion ;  and 
its  adoption  gave  the  queen  a  fresh  opportunity  of  strengthening  the 
esteem  and  affection  of  the  nation,  by  declaring  that  while  the  war 
lasted  sne  would  only  accept  half  the  sum  thus  placed  at  her  disposal. 

The  continuance  of  the  war  was  not  without  its  effect  on  the 
gayety  of  the  court,  from  the  number  of  officers  whom  their  mil- 
itary duties  detained  with  their  regiments ;  but  the  quiet  was  bene- 
ficial to  Marie  Antoinette,  whose  health  was  again  becoming  deli- 
cate, so  much  so,  that  after  a  grand  drawing-room  which  she  held 
on  New-year's-eve,  and  which  was  attended  by  nearly  two  hun- 
dred of  the  chief  ladies  of  the  city,  she  was  completely  knocked 
up,  and  forced  to  put  herself  under  the  care  of  her  physician. 

Meanwhile  the  war  became  more  formidable.  The  English 
admiral,  Rodney,  the  greatest  sailor  who,  as  yet,  had  ever  com- 
manded a  British  fleet,  in  the  middle  of  January  utterly  destroy- 
ed a  strong  Spanish  squadron  off  Cape  St.  Vincent ;  and  as  from 
the  coast  of  Spain  he  proceeded  to  the  West  Indies,  the  French 
ministry  had  ample  reason  to  be  alarmed  for  the  safety  of  the 
force  which  they  had  in  those  regions.  It  was  evident  that  it 
would  require  every  effort  that  could  be  made  to  enable  their 
sailors  to  maintain  the  contest  against  an  antagonist  so  brave  and 
so  skillful.  And,  as  one  of  the  first  steps  toward  such  a  result, 

*  Letter  of  November  17th. 


166  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

Necker  obtained  the  king's  consent  to  a  great  reform  in  the  ex- 
penditure of  the  court  and  in  the  civil  service ;  and  to  the  aboli- 
tion of  a  great  number  of  costly  sinecures.  We  may  be  able  to 
form  some  idea  of  the  prodigality  which  had  hitherto  wasted  the 
revenues  of  the  country,  from  the  circumstance  that  a  single  edict 
suppressed  above  four  hundred  offices ;  and  Marie  Antoinette  was 
so  sincere  in  her  desire  to  promote  such  measures,  that  she  speaks 
warmly  in  their  praise  to  her  mother,  even  though  they  greatly 
curtailed  her  power  of  gratifying  her  own  favorites. 

"  The  king,"  she  says, "  has  just  issued  an  edict  which  is  as  yet 
only  the  forerunner  of  a  reform  which  he  designs  to  make  both 
in  his  own  household  and  in  mine.  If  it  be  carried  out,  it  will  be 
a  great  benefit,  not  only  for  the  economy  which  it  will  introduce, 
but  still  more  for  its  agreement  with  public  opinion,  and  for  the 
satisfaction  it  will  give  the  nation."  It  is  impossible  for  any  lan- 
guage to  show  more  completely  how,  above  all  things,  she  made 
the  good  of  the  country  her  first  object.  And  she  was  the  more 
inclined  to  approve  of  all  that  was  being  done  in  this  way  from 
her  conviction  that  Necker  was  both  honest  and  able ;  an  opinion 
which  she  shared  with,  if  she  had  not  learned  it  from,  her  mother 
and  her  brother,  and  which  was  to  some  extent  justified  by  the 
comparative  order  which  he  had  re-established  in  the  finance  of 
the  country,  and  by  the  degree  in  which  he  had  revived  public 
credit.  She  was  not  aware  that  the  real  dangers  of  the  situation 
had  a  source  deeper  than  any  financial  difficulty,  a  fact  which 
Necker  himself  was  unable  to  comprehend.  And  she  could  not 
foresee,  when  it  became  necessary  to  grapple  with  those  dangers, 
how  unequal  to  the  struggle  the  great  banker  would  be  found. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  inferred  that  she  did  suspect  Necker  of 
some  deficiency  in  the  higher  qualities  of  statesmanship  when,  in 
the  spring  of  1780,  she  told  her  mother  that  "  she  would  give  ev- 
ery thing  in  the  world  to  have  a  Prince  Kaunitz  in  the  minis- 
try ;*  but  that  such  men  were  rare,  and  were  only  to  be  found  by 
those  who,  like  the  empress  herself,  had  the  sagacity  to  discover 
and  the  judgment  to  appreciate  such  merit."  She  was,  however, 
shutting  her  eyes  to  the  fact  that  her  husband  had  had  a  minister 
far  superior  to  Kaunitz ;  and  that  she  herself  had  lent  her  aid  to 
drive  him  from  his  service. 

*  Kaunitz  had  been  the  prime  minister  of  the  empress,  who  negotiated  the 
alliances  with  France  and  Russia,  which  were  the  preparations  for  the  Seven 
Years'  War. 


ANGLOMANIA  IN  PARIS.  167 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Anglomania  in  Paris. — The  Winter  at  Versailles. — Hunting.  —  Private  The- 
atricals.— Death  of  Prince  Charles  of  Lorraine. — Successes  of  the  English 
in  America. — Education  of  the  Due  d'Angouleme. — Libelous  Attacks  on 
the  Queen. — Death  of  the  Empress. — Favor  shown  to  some  of  the  Swe- 
dish Nobles.  —  The  Count  de  Fersen.  —  Necker  retires  from  Office.  —  His 
Character. 

IT  is  curious,  while  the  resources  of  the  kingdom  were  so  se- 
verely taxed  to  maintain  the  war  against  England,  of  which  every 
succeeding  dispatch  from  the  seat  of  war  showed  more  and  more 
the  imprudence,  to  read  in  Mercy's  correspondence  accounts  of 
the  Anglomania  which  still  subsisted  in  Paris;  surpassing  that 
which  the  letters  of  the  empress  describe  as  reigning  in  Vienna, 
though  it  did  not  show  itself  now  in  quite  the  same  manner  as  a 
year  or  two  before,  in  the  aping  of  English  vices,  gambling  at 
races,  and  hard  drinking,  but  rather  in  a  copying  of  the  fashions 
of  men's  dress;  in  the  introduction  of  top-boots ;  and,  very  whole- 
somely, in  the  adoption  of  a  country  life  by  many  of  the  great 
nobles,  in  imitation  of  the  English  gentry ;  so  that,  for  the  first 
time  since  the  coronation  of  Louis  XIV.,  the  great  territorial  lords 
began  to  spend  a  considerable  part  of  the  year  on  their  estates, 
and  no  longer  to  think  the  interests  and  requirements  of  their 
tenants  and  dependents  beneath  their  notice. 

The  winter  of  1779  and  the  spring  of  1780  passed  very  happi- 
ly. If  Versailles,  from  the  reasons  mentioned  above,  was  not  as 
crowded  as  in  former  years,  it  was  very  lively.  The  season  was 
unusually  mild ;  the  hunting  was  scarcely  ever  interrupted,  and 
Marie  Antoinette,  who  now  made  it  a  rule  to  accompany  her  hus- 
band on  every  possible  occasion,  sometimes  did  not  return  from 
the  hunt  till  the  night  was  far  advanced,  and  found  her  health 
much  benefited  by  the  habit  of  spending  the  greater  part  of  even 
a  winter's  day  in  the  open  air.  Her  garden,  too,  which  daily  oc- 
cupied more  and  more  of  her  attention,  as  it  increased  in  beauty, 
had  the  same  tendency ;  and  her  anxiety  to  profit  by  the  experi- 
ence of  others  on  one  occasion  inflicted  a  whimsical  disappoint- 


168  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

ment  on  the  free-thinkers  of  the  court  The  profligate  and  senti- 
mental infidel  Rousseau  had  died  a  couple  of  years  before,  and 
had  been  buried  at  Ermenonville,  in  the  park  of  the  Count  de 
Girardin.  In  the  course  of  the  summer  the  queen  drove  over  to 
Ermenonville,  and  the  admirers  of  the  versatile  writer  flattered 
themselves  that  her  object  was  to  pay  a  visit  of  homage  to  the 
shrine  of  their  idol ;  but  they  were  greatly  mortified  to  find  that, 
though  his  tomb  was  pointed  out  to  her,  she  took  no  further  no- 
tice of  it  than  such  as  consisted  of  a  passing  remark  that  it  was 
very  neat,  and  very  prettily  placed  ;  and  that  what  had  attracted 
her  curiosity  was  the  English  garden  which  the  count  had  recent- 
ly laid  out  at  a  great  expense,  and  from  which  she  had  been  led 
to  expect  that  she  might  derive  some  hints  for  the  further  im- 
provement of  her  own  Little  Trianon. 

She  had  not  yet  entirely  given  up  her  desire  for  novelty  in  her 
amusements ;  and  she  began  now  to  establish  private  theatricals 
at  Versailles,  choosing  light  comedies  interspersed  with  song,  and 
with  but  few  characters,  the  male  parts  being  filled  by  the  Count 
d'Artois  and  some  of  the  most  distinguished  officers  of  the  house- 
hold, while  she  herself  took  one  of  the  female  parts ;  the  specta- 
tors being  confined  to  the  royal  family  and  those  nobles  whose 
posts  entitled  them  to  immediate  attendance  on  the  king  and 
queen.  She  was  so  anxious  to  perform  her  own  part  well,  though 
she  did  not  take  any  of  the  principal  characters,  but  preferred  to 
act  the  waiting-woman  rather  than  the  mistress,  that  she  placed 
herself  under  the  tuition  of  Michu,  a  professional  actor  of  reputa- 
tion from  one  of  the  Parisian  theatres ;  but,  though  the  audience 
was  far  too  courtly  to  greet  her  appearance  on  the  stage  without 
vociferous  applause,  the  preponderance  of  evidence  must  lead  us 
to  believe  that  her  majesty  was  not  a  good  actress.*  And  per- 
haps we  may  think  that  as  the  parts  which  she  selected  required 
rather  an  arch  pertness  than  the  grace  and  majesty  which  were 
more  natural  to  her,  so,  also,  they  were  not  altogether  in  keeping 
with  the  stately  dignity  which  queens  should  never  wholly  lay 
aside. 

It  was  well,  however,  that  she  should  have  amusements  to 
cheer  her,  for  the  year  was  destined  to  bring  her  heavy  troubles 


*  "  On  assure  que  sa  majeste  ne  joue  pas  bien ;  ce  que  personne,  excepte 
le  roi,  n'a  ose  lui  dire.  Au  contraire,  on  1'applaudit  a  tout  rompre." — Marie 
Antoinette,  Louis  XVI.  et  la,  Famille  Royale,  p.  203,  date  September  28th,  1780. 


EVENTS  OF  THE  WAR.  169 

before  its  close :  losses  in  her  own  family,  which  would  be  felt 
with  terrible  heaviness  by  her  affectionate  disposition,  were  im- 
pending over  her ;  while  the  news  from  America,  where  the  En- 
glish army  at  this  time  was  achieving  triumphs  which  seemed 
likely  to  have  a  decisive  influence  on  the  result  of  the  war,  caused 
her  great  anxiety.  How  great,  a  letter  which  she  wrote  to  her 
mother  in  July  affords  a  striking  proof.  In  June,  when  she 
heard  of  the  dangerous  illness  of  her  uncle,  Prince  Charles  of 
Lorraine,  now  Governor  of  the  Low  Countries,  formerly  the  gal- 
lant antagonist  of  Frederick  of  Prussia,  she  declared  that  "the 
intelligence  overwhelmed  her  with  an  agitation  and  grief  such 
as  she  had  never  before  experienced,"  and  she  lamented  with  evi- 
dently deep  and  genuine  distress  the  threatened  extinction  of 
the  male  line  of  the  house  of  Lorraine.  But  before  she  wrote 
again,  the  news  of  Sir  Henry  Clinton's  exploits  in  Carolina  had 
arrived,  and,  though  almost  the  same  post  informed  her  of  the 
prince's  death,  the  sorrow  which  that  bereavement  awakened  in 
her  mind  was  scarcely  allowed,  even  in  its  first  freshness,  an  equal 
share  of  her  lamentations  with  the  more  absorbing  importance  of 
the  events  of  the  campaign  beyond  the  Atlantic. 

"  MY  DEAREST  MOTHER, — I  wrote  to  you  the  moment  that  I 
received  the  sad  intelligence  of  my  uncle's  death ;  though,  as  the 
Brussels  courier  had  already  started,  I  fear  my  letter  may  have 
arrived  rather  late.  I  will  not  venture  to  say  more  on  the  subject, 
lest  I  should  be  reopening  a  sorrow  for  which  you  have  so  much 
cause  to  grieve The  capture  of  Charleston*  is  a  most  disas- 
trous event,  both  for  the  facilities  it  will  afford  the  English  and 
for  the  encouragement  which  it  will  give  to  their  pride.  It  is 
perhaps  still  more  serious  because  of  the  miserable  defense  made 
by  the  Americans.  One  can  hope  nothing  from  such  bad  troops." 

It  is  curious  to  contrast  the  angry  jealousy  which  she  here  be- 
trays of  our  disposition  and  policy  as  a  nation,  with  the  partiali- 
ty which,  as  we  have  seen,  she  showed  for  the  agreeable  qualities 
of  individual  Englishmen.  But  her  uneasiness  on  this  subject 
led  to  practical  results,  by  inducing  her  to  add  her  influence  to 
that  of  a  party  which  was  discontented  with  the  ministry;  and 
was  especially  laboring  to  persuade  the  king  to  make  a  change  in 

*  In  May,  1Y80,  Sir  Henry  Clinton  took  Charleston,  with  a  great  number  of 
prisoners,  a  great  quantity  of  stores,  and  four  hundred  guns. — LORD  STAN- 
HOPE'S History  of  England,  ch.  Ixii. 


170  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

the  War  Department,  and  to  dismiss  the  Prince  de  Montbarey, 
whose  sole  recommendation  for  the  office  of  secretary  of  state 
seemed  to  be  that  he  was  a  friend  of  the  prime  minister,  and  to 
give  his  place  to  the  Count  de  Segur.  The  change  was  made,  as 
any  change  was  sure  to  be  made  in  favor  of  which  she  personal- 
ly exerted  herself ;  even  the  partisans  of  M.  de  Maurepas  himself 
were  forced  to  allow  that  the  new  minister  was  in  every  respect 
far  superior  to  his  predecessor ;  and  Mercy  was  desirous  that  she 
should  procure  the  dismissal  of  Maurepas  also,  thinking  it  of 
great  importance  to  her  own  comfort  that  the  prime  minister 
should  be  bound  to  her  interests. 

But  she  was  far  more  anxious  on  other  subjects.  Nearly  two 
years  had  now  elapsed  since  the  birth  of  the  princess  royal ;  and 
there  was  as  yet  no  prospect  of  a  companion  to  her,  so  that  the 
Count  d'Artois  began  to  make  arrangements  for  the  education  of 
his  infant  son,  the  Due  d'Augouleme,  with  a  premature  solicitude, 
which  was  evidently  designed  to  point  the  child  out  to  the  nation 
as  its  future  sovereign.*  The  queen  was  greatly  annoyed;  and, 
to  add  to  her  vexation,  one  of  the  teething  illnesses  to  which 
children  are  subject  at  this  time  threw  the  little  princess  into  con- 
vulsions, which,  to  a  mother's  anxiety,  seemed  even  dangerous  to 
her  life ;  though  in  a  day  or  two  that  apprehension  passed  away. 

But  these  hopes  of  D'Artois  and  his  flatterers  again  rilled  the 
court  with  intrigues.  In  the  course  of  the  summer  she  was  made 
highly  indignant  by  finding  that  news  from  the  court,  with  ma- 
licious comments,  were  sent  from  Paris  across  the  frontier  to  be 
printed  at  Deux-Ponts  or  Dusseldorf,  and  then  circulated  in  Paris 
and  in  Vienna ;  and  it  was  difficult  to  avoid  connecting  these  libels 
with  those  who  in  the  palace  itself  were  manifestly  building  hopes 
on  the  diminution  of  her  influence  and  the  disparagement  of  her 
character. 

But  this  and  all  other  vexations  were  presently  thrown  into  the 
shade  by  a  great  grief,  the  more  difficult  to  bear  because  it  was 
wholly  unexpected  by  her — the  death  of  her  mother.  In  real- 
ity, Maria  Teresa  had  been  unwell  for  some  time;  but  the  sus- 
picions of  the  serious  character  of  her  complaint,  which  she  se- 
cretly entertained,  she  had  never  revealed  to  Marie  Antoinette ; 


1  "  Cette  disposition  a  6te  faite  deux  ans  plutot  que  ne  le  comporte  1'usage 
6tabli  pour  les  enfants  de  France." — Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa,  October  14th, 
Arneth,  iii.,  p.  47G. 


DEATH  OF  MARIA   TERESA.  171 

and  at  last  the  end  followed  too  quickly  on  the  first  appearance 
of  danger  to  allow  time  for  any  preparatory  warnings  to  be  re- 
ceived at  Versailles  before  the  fatal  intelligence  arrived.  On  the 
24th  of  November  she  was  taken  ill  in  a  manner  which  excited 
the  alarm  of  her  physicians,  but  her  family  felt  no  apprehensions. 
Even  on  the  27th,  the  emperor  felt  so  sanguine  that  the  cough 
which  seemed  her  most  distressing  symptom  was  but  temporary, 
that  it  was  with  the  greatest  unwillingness  that  he  consented  to 
her  receiving  the  communion,  as  the  physicians  recommended ; 
but  the  next  day  even  he  was  forced  to  acquiesce  in  the  hopeless 
view  which  they  took  of  their  patient;  and  on  the  29th  she  died, 
after  having  borne  sufferings,  which  for  the  last  three  days  had 
been  of  the  most  painful  character,  with  the  same  heroism  with 
which,  in  her  earlier  life,  she  had  struggled  against  griefs  of  a 
different  kind. 

The  dispatch  announcing  her  death  was  brought  to  the  king; 
and  it  is  characteristic  of  his  timid  disposition  that  he  could  not 
nerve  himself  to  communicate  it  to  his  wife,  but  suppressed  all 
mention  of  it  during  the  evening ;  and  in  the  morning  summoned 
the  Abbe  de  Vermond,  and  employed  him  to  break  the  news  to 
her,  reserving,  for  himself  the  less  painful  task  of  approaching 
her  with  words  of  affectionate  consolation  after  the  first  shock 
was  over.  For  a  time,  however,  she  was  almost  overwhelmed 
with  sorrow.  She  attempted  to  write  to  her  brother,  but  after  a 
few  lines  she  closed  the  letter,  declaring  that  her  tears  prevented 
her  from  seeing  the  paper ;  and  those  about  her  found  that  for 
some  time  she  could  bear  no  other  topic  of  conversation  than  the 
courage,  the  wisdom,  the  greatness  of  her  mother,  and,  above  all, 
her  warm  affection  for  herself  and  for  all  her  other  children.* 

With  the  death  of  the  empress  we  lose  the  aid  of  Mercy's  cor- 
respondence, which  has  afforded  such  invaluable  service  in  the  light 
it  has  thrown  on  the  peculiarities  of  Marie  Antoinette's  position, 
and  the  gradual  development  of  her  character  during  the  earlier 
years  of  her  residence  in  France.  We  shall  again  obtain  light 
from  the  same  source  of  almost  greater  importance,  when  the  still 
more  terrible  dangers  of  the  Revolution  rendered  the  queen  more 
dependent  than  ever  on  his  counsels.  But  for  the  next  few  years 
we  shall  be  compelled  to  content  ourselves  with  scantier  materials 
than  have  been  furnished  by  the  empress's  unceasing  interest  in 

*  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  iz. 


172  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

her  daughter's  welfare,  and  the  embassador's  faithful  and  candid 
reports. 

The  death  of  Maria  Teresa  naturally  closed  the  court  of  her 
daughter  against  all  gayeties  during  the  spring  of  1781.  Still, 
one  of  the  taxes  which  princes  pay  for  their  grandeur  is  the  force 
which,  at  times,  they  are  compelled  to  put  upon  their  inclinations, 
when  they  dispense  with  that  retirement  which  their  own  feelings 
would  render  acceptable ;  and,  after  a  few  weeks  of  seclusion,  a 
few  guests  began  to  be  admitted  to  the  royal  supper-table,  among 
whom,  as  a  very  extraordinary  favor,  were  some  Swedish  nobles  ;* 
one  of  whom,  the  Count  de  Stedingk,  had  established  a  claim  to 
the  royal  favor  by  serving,  with  several  of  his  countrymen,  as  a 
volunteer  in  the  Count  d'Estaing's  fleet  in  the  West  Indies.  Such 
service  was  highly  esteemed  by  both  king  and  queen,  since  Louis, 
though  he  had  been  unwillingly  dragged  into  the  war  by  the  am- 
bition of  the  Count  de  Vergennes  and  the  popular  enthusiasm, 
naturally,  when  once  engaged  in  it,  took  as  vivid  an  interest  in  the 
prowess  of  his  forces  as  if  he  had  never  been  troubled  with  any 
misgivings  as  to  the  policy  which  had  set  them  in  motion ;  and 
Marie  Antoinette  was  at  all  times  excited  to  enthusiasm  by  any 
deed  of  valor,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  took  an  especial  interest  in 
the  achievements  of  the  navy. 

The  King  of  Sweden,  the  chivalrous  Gustavus  III.,  had  already 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Louis  and  Marie  Antoinette  in  a  short 
visit  which  he  had  paid  to  France  the  year  after  their  marriage ; 
and  the  queen  now  wrote  to  him  in  warm  praise  of  M.  de  Ste- 
dingk, and  all  his  countrymen  who  had  come  under  her  notice^ 
while  the  king  rewarded  the  count's  valor  and  the  wounds  which 
had  been  incurred  in  its  exhibition  by  an  order  of  knighthood,! 
and  the  more  substantial  gift  of  a  pension.  But  the  Swede  who 
soon  outran  all  his  compatriots  in  the  race  for  the  royal  favor  of 
both  king  and  queen  was  the  Count  Axel  de  Fersen,  a  descendant, 
it  was  believed,  of  one  of  the  Scotch  officers  of  the  great  Macpher- 
son  clan,  who,  in  the  stormy  times  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  had 
sought  fame  and  fortune  under  the  banner  of  Gustavus  Adolphus. 
The  beauty  of  his  countess  was  celebrated  throughout  both  Swe- 
den and  France,  and  his  own  was 'but  little  inferior  to  it.  If  she 

*  "  Gustave  III.  et  la  Cour  de  France,"  i.,  p.  849. 

f  An  order  known  as  that  "  du  Merite  "  had  been  recently  distributed  for 
foreign  Protestant  officers,  whose  religion  prevented  them  from  taking  the- 
oath  required  of  the  Knights  of  the  Grand  Order  of  St.  Louis. 


SWEDISH  NOBLES  AT  THE  COURT.  173 

was  known  as  "The  Rose  of  the  North,"  his  name  was  rarely 
mentioned  without  the  addition  of  "  The  handsome."  He  was  a 
perfect  master  of  all  noble  and  knightly  accomplishments,  and 
was  also  distinguished  for  a  certain  high-souled  and  romantic* 
enthusiasm,  which  lent  a  tinge  to  all  his  conversation  and  de- 
meanor ;  and  this  combination  won  for  him  the  marked  favor  of 
Marie  Antoinette.  The  calumniators,  whom  the  condition  and 
prospects  of  the  royal  family  made  more  busy  than  ever  at  this 
time,  insinuated  that  he  had  touched  her  heart;  but  those  who 
knew  best  the  manners  of  life  and  characters  of  both  denounced 
it  as  the  vilest  of  libels.  The  count's  was  a  loyal  attachment,  do- 
ing nothing  but  honor  to  him  who  felt  it,  and  to  the  queen  who 
inspired  it;  and  it  was  marked  by  a  permanence  which  distin- 
guishes no  devotion  but  that  which  is  pure  and  noble,  as  he  show- 
ed ten  years  later  by  the  well-planned  and  courageous,  though  un- 
successful, efforts  which  he  made  for  the  deliverance  of  the  queen 
and  all  her  family. 

That  Marie  Antoinette,  who  from  early  youth  had  shown  an  in- 
tuitive accuracy  of  judgment  in  her  estimate  of  character,  should, 
from  the  very  first,  honorably  distinguish  a  man  capable  of  such 
devotion  to  her  service  was  not  unnatural ;  but  there  w,as  another 
circumstance  in  his  favor,  which  he  shared  with  the  other  foreign 
nobles,  English  and  German,  who  in  these  years  were  well  received 
by  the  queen.  Their  disinterestedness  presented  a  striking  con- 
trast to  the  rapacity  of  the  French.  Every  French  noble  valued 
the  court  only  for  what  he  could  obtain  from  it.  Even  Madame 
de  Polignac,  whom  the  queen  specially  honored  with  the  title  of 
her  friend,  exhibited  an  all-grasping  covetousness,  of  which,  with 
all  her  efforts  to  shut  her  eyes  to  it,  Marie  Antoinette  could  not 
be  unconscious ;  and  her  perception  of  the  difference  between  her 
French  and  her  foreign  courtiers  was  marked  by  herself  in  a  few 
words,  when  the  Comte  de  la  Marck,  who  was  himself  of  foreign 
extraction,  ventured  once  to  recommend  to  her  greater  caution  in 
her  display  of  liking  for  the  foreign  nobles,  as  what  might  excite  the 
jealousy  of  the  French  ;f  and  she  replied  that  "  he  might  be  right, 
but  the  foreigners  were  the  only  people  who  asked  her  for  nothing." 

Meanwhile,  the  war  went  on  in  America;  the  colonists  them- 

*  "Sa  figure  et  son  air  convenaient  parfaitement  a  un  h6ros  de  roman, 
mais  non  pas  d'un  roman  fnmruis ;  il  n'en  avait  ni  le  brillant  ni  la  legerete." 
— Souvenirs  et  Portraits,  par  M.  de  Levis,  p.  180. 

f  "  La  Marck  et  Mirabeau,"  p.  82. 


174  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

selves  were  making  but  little,  if  any,  progress,  and  the  French  con- 
tingent were  certainly  reaping  no  honor,  M.  de  La  Fayette,  the 
only  officer  who  came  in  contact  with  a  British  force,  showing  no 
military  skill  or  capacity,  and  not  even  much  courage.  But  in 
the  course  of  the  spring  France  sustained  a  far  heavier  loss  than 
even  the  defeat  of  an  army  could  have  inflicted  on  her,  in  the  re- 
tirement of  Necker  from  the  ministry.  As  a  statesman,  he  was 
certainly  not  entitled  to  any  very  high  rank.  He  had  neither  ex- 
tensive knowledge,  nor  large  views,  nor  firmness ;  the  only  project 
of  constitutional  reform  which  he  had  brought  forward  had  been 
but  a  mutilated  and  imperfect  copy  of  the  system  devised  by  the 
original  and  statesman  -  like  daring  of  Turgot.  At  a  subsequent 
period  he  proved  himself  incapable  of  discerning  the  true  charac- 
ter of  the  circumstances  which  surrounded  him,  and  wholly  igno- 
rant of  the  feelings  of  the  nation,  and  of  the  principles  and  ob- 
jects of  those  who  aspired  to  take  a  lead  in  its  councils.  But 
as  yet  his  financial  policy  had  undoubtedly  been  successful.  He 
had  greatly  relieved  the  general  distress,  he  had  maintained  the 
public  credit,  and  he  had  inspired  the  nation  with  confidence  in 
itself,  and  other  countries  also  with  confidence  in  its  resources ; 
but  he  had  made  many  and  powerful  enemies  by  the  retrench- 
ments which  had  been  a  necessary  part  of  his  system.  As  early 
as  the  spring  of  1780,  Mercy  had  reported  to  the  empress  that 
both  the  king's  brothers  and  the  Due  d'Orleans  complained  that 
some  of  his  measures  infringed  upon  their  established  rights ; 
that  the  Count  d'Artois  had  had  a  very  stormy  discussion  with 
Necker  himself,  and,  when  he  could  neither  convince  nor  overbear 
him,  had  tried,  though  unsuccessfully,  to  enlist  the  queen  against 
him.  The  count  had  since  employed  the  controller  of  his  own 
household,  M.  Boutourlin,  to  write  pamphlets  against  him,  and,  in 
point  of  fact,  many  of  the  most  elaborate  details  of  a  financial  state- 
ment which  Necker  had  recently  published  were  very  ill-calculated 
to  endure  a  strict  scrutiny ;  but  M.  Boutourlin  did  his  work  so  bad- 
ly that  Necker  had  no  difficulty  in  repelling  him,  and  for  a  moment 
seemed  the  stronger  for  the  attack  that  had  been  made  upon  him. 
He  had  been  so  far  right  in  his  estimate  of  his  position  that  he 
could  rely  on  the  support  of  the  queen,  who  was  aware  that  both 
her  mother  and  her  brother  had  a  high  opinion  of  his  integrity ; 
but  though  the  king  also  had  from  time  to  time  given  his  cordial 
sanction  to  his  different  measures,  it  was  not  in  the  nature  of 
Louis  to  withstand  repeated  pressure  and  solicitation.  Necker, 


INTRIGUES  OF  THE  COUNT  D'AXTOIS.  175 

too,  himself  unintentionally  played  into  the  hands  of  his  enemies. 
He  had  nominally  only  a  subordinate  position  in  the  ministry. 
As  he  was  a  Protestant,  Louis  had  feared  to  offend  the  clergy  by 
giving  him  a  seat  in  the  council,  or  the  title  of  comptroller-general ; 
but  had  conferred  that  post  on  M.  Taboureau  des  Reaux,  making 
Necker  director  of  the  treasury  under  him.  The  real  manage- 
ment of  the  exchequer  was,  however,  placed  wholly  in  his  hands ; 
and,  as  he  was  one  of  the  vainest  of  men,  he  had  gradually  as- 
sumed a  tone  of  importance  as  if  his  were  the  paramount  influ- 
ence in  the  Government ;  going  so  far  as  even  to  open  negotia- 
tions with  foreign  statesmen  to  which  none  of  his  colleagues  were 
privy.*  It  was  not  strange  that  he  was  not  very  well  satisfied 
with  a  position  which  seemed  as  if  it  had  been  contrived  in  order 
to  keep  him  out  of  sight,  and  to  deprive  him  of  the  credit  belong- 
ing to  his  financial  successes ;  but  hitherto  he  had  been  satisfied 
to  bide  his  time.  Now,  however,  his  triumph  over  M.  Boutourlin 
seemed  to  him  so  to  have  established  his  supremacy  as  to  entitle 
him  to  insist  on  a  promotion  which  should  be  a  public  recogni- 
tion of  his  position  as  the  real  minister  of  finance,  and  as  entitled 
to  a  preponderating  voice  in  all  matters  of  general  policy.  He 
accordingly  demanded  admission  to  the  council,  and,  on  its  being 
refused,  at  once  resigned  his  office. 

The  consternation  was  universal ;  the  general  public  had  grad- 
ually learned  to  place  such  confidence  in  him  that  they  looked  on 
his  loss  as  irreparable.  Some  even  of  the  princes  who  had  origi- 
nally striven  to  prepossess  the  king  against  him  either  changed 
their  minds  or  feared  to  show  their  disagreement  with  the  com- 
mon feeling.  And  Marie  Antoinette,  who  fully  shared  his  views 
as  to  the  primary  importance  of  finance  in  all  questions  of  gov- 
ernment, condescended  to  admit  him  to  an  interview;  requested 
him,  as  a  personal  favor  to  herself,  to  recall  his  resignation,  urging 
upon  him  that  patience  would  surely  in  time  procure  him  all  that 
lie  asked ;  and,  in  her  honest  earnestness  for  the  welfare  of  the 
nation,  wept  when  he  withdrew  without  having  yielded  to  her  so- 
licitations. It  was  late  in  the  evening  and  dark  when  he  took  his 
leave,  and  afterward,  when  he  was  told  that  he  had  drawn  tears 
from  her  eyes  by  his  refusal,  he  said  that,  had  he  seen  them,  he 
should  have  submitted  to  a  wish  so  enforced,  even  at  the  sacrifice 
of  his  own  comfort  and  reputation. 

*  See  his  letter  to  Lord  North  proposing  peace,  date  December  1st,  1780. 
Lord  Stanhope's  "  History  of  England,"  vol.  vii.,  Appendix,  p.  18. 


176  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Queen  expects  to  be  confined  again.  —  Increasing  Unpopularity  of  the 
King's  Brothers. — Birth  of  the  Dauphin. — Festivities. — Deputations  from 
the  Different  Trades. — Songs  of  the  Dames  de  la  Halle. — Ball  given  by  the 
Body-guard. — Unwavering  Fidelity  of  the  Regiment. — The  Queen  offers  up 
her  Thanksgiving  at  Notre  Dame. — Banquet  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville. — Re- 
joicings in  Paris. 

How  irreparable  his  loss  was,  was  shown  by  the  rapid  succes- 
sion of  finance  ministers  who,  in  the  course  of  the  next  seven 
years,  successively  held  the  office  of  comptroller-general.  All  were 
equally  incompetent,  and  under  their  administration,  sometimes 
merely  incapable,  sometimes  combining  recklessness  and  corrup- 
tion with  incapacity,  the  treasury  again  became  exhausted,  the  re- 
sources of  the  nation  dwindled  away,  and  the  distress  of  all  but 
the  wealthiest  classes  became  more  and  more  insupportable.  But 
for  a  time  the  attention  of  Marie  Antoinette  was  drawn  off  from 
political  embarrassments  by  the  event  which  alone  seemed  want- 
ing to  complete  her  personal  happiness,  and  to  place  her  position 
and  popularity  on  an  impregnable  foundation. 

In  the  spring  she  discovered  that  she  was  again  about  to  be- 
come a  mother.  The  whole  nation  expected  the  result  with  an 
intense  anxiety.  The  king's  brothers  were  daily  becoming  more 
and  more  deservedly  unpopular.  The  Count  d'Artois,  who  as 
the  father  of  a  son,  occupied  more  of  the  general  attention  than 
his  elder  brother,  seemed  to  take  pains  to  parade  his  contempt 
for  the  commercial  class,  and  still  more  for  the  lower  orders,  and 
his  disapproval  of  every  proposal  which  had  for  its  object  to  con- 
ciliate the  traders  or  to  relieve  the  sufferings  of  the  poor;  while 
the  Count  de  Provence  openly  established  a  mistress,  the  Countess 
de  Balbi,  at  the  Luxembourg  Palace,  his  residence  in  the  capital, 
where  she  presided  over  the  receptions  which  he  took  upon  him- 
self to  hold,  to  the  exclusion  of  his  lawful  princess.  The  Count- 
ess de  Provence  was  not  well  calculated  to  excite  admiration  or 
sympathy,  since  she  was  plain  and  ungracious.  But  Madame  de 
Balbi,  whose  character  had  been  disgracefully  notorious  even  be- 


BIRTH  OF  THE  DAUPHIX.  177 

fore  her  connection  with  the  count,  was  not  more  attractive  in  ap- 
pearance or  manner  than  the  Savoy  princess ;  and  the  citizens  of 
Paris,  who  in  this  instance  faithfully  represented  the  feelings  of 
the  entire  nation,  did  not  disguise  their  anxiety  that  the  child 
about  to  be  born  should  be  a  prince,  who  might  extinguish  the 
hopes  and  projects  of  both  his  uncles. 

Their  wishes  were  gratified.  On  the  morning  of  the  22d  of 
October  the  king  was  starting  from  the  palace  on  a  hunting  ex- 
pedition with  his  brothers,  when  it  was  announced  to  him  that 
the  queen  was  taken  ill.*  He  at  once  returned  to  her  room,  and, 
mindful  of  the  danger  which  she  had  incurred  on  the  occasion  of 
the  birth  of  Madame  Royale  from  the  greatness  and  disorder  of 
the  crowd,  he  broke  through  the  ancient  custom,  and  ordered  that 
the  doors  should  be  closed,  and  that  no  one  should  be  admitted 
beyond  a  very  small  number  of  the  great  officers,  male  and  fe- 
male, of  the  household.  His  cares  were  rewarded  by  a  compar- 
atively easy  birth ;  and  his  anxiety  to  protect  his  wife  from  agi- 
tation was  further  shown  by  a  second  arrangement,  which  was 
perhaps  hardly  so  easy  to  carry  out,  but  which  was  also  perfectly 
successful.  As  was  most  natural,  the  queen  and  himself  fully 
shared  the  ardent  wishes  of  the  nation  that  the  expected  child 
should  prove  an  heir  to  the  throne ;  and  he  consequently  feared 
that,  should  it  not  be  so,  the  disappointment  might  produce  an 
injurious  effect  on  the  mother's  health ;  or,  should  their  hopes  be 
realized,  that  the  excessive  joy  might  be  equally  dangerous.  With 
a  desire,  therefore,  to  avoid  exposing  her  to  either  shock  in  the 
first  moments  of  weakness,  he  forbade  any  announcement  of  the 
sex  of  the  child  being  made  to  any  one  but  himself.  The  in- 
stant that  the  child  was  born,  he  hastened  to  the  bedside  to  judge 
for  himself  whether  she  could  bear  the  news.  Presently  she  came 
to  herself ;  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  the  general  silence  indicated 
that  she  had  become  the  mother  of  a  second  daughter.  But  she 
desired  to  be  assured  of  the  fact.  "See,"  said  she  to  Louis, 
"  how  reasonable  I  am.  I  ask  no  questions."!  And  Louis,  who 
from  joy  was  scarcely  able  to  contain  himself,  seeing  her  freedom 
from  agitation,  thought  he  might  safely  reveal  to  her  the  whole 
extent  of  their  happiness.  He  called  out,  so  as  to  be  heard  by 
the  Princess  de  Guimenee,  who  still  held  the  post  of  governess  to 

*  "  Gustave  III.  et  la  Cour  de  France,"  i.,  p.  357. 
f  Chambrier,  i.,  p.  430 ;  "  Gustave  III.,"  etc.,  i.,  p.  353. 
12 


178  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

the  royal  children,  and  who  had  already  exhibited  the  child  to  the 
witnesses  in  the  antechamber,  and  was  now  awaiting  his  sum- 
mons at  the  open  door, "  My  lord  the  dauphin  begs  to  be  admit- 
ted." The  Princess  de  Guimenee  brought  "  my  lord  the  dauphin" 
to  his  mother's  arms,  and  for  a  few  minutes  the  small  company  in 
the  room  gazed  in  respectful  silence  while  the  father  and  mother 
mingled  tears  of  joy  with  broken  words  of  thanksgiving. 

Yet  even  in  this  moment  of  exultation  Marie  Antoinette  could 
not  forget  her  first-born,  nor  the  feelings  which  had  made  her 
rejoice  at  the  birth  of  a  daughter,  who  still  had,  as  it  were,  no  ri- 
val in  her  eyes,  because  no  rival  claim  to  her  own  could  be  set  up 
with  respect  to  a  princess.  She  kissed  the  long-wished-for  infant 
over  and  over  again ;  pressed  him  fondly  to  her  heart ;  and  then, 
after  she  had  perused  each  feature  with  anxious  scrutiny,  and 
pointed  out  some  resemblances,  such  as  mothers  see,  to  his  father, 
"  Take  him,"  said  she,  to  Madame  de  Guimenee ;  "  he  belongs  to 
the  State ;  but  my  daughter  is  still  mine."* 

Presently  the  chamber  was  cleared ;  and  in  a  few  minutes  the 
glad  tidings  were  carried  to  every  corner  of  the  palace  and  town 
of  Versailles,  and,  as  speedily  as  expresses  could  gallop,  to  the 
anxious  city  of  Paris.  By  a  somewhat  whimsical  coincidence,  the 
Count  de  Stedingk,  who,  from  having  been  one  of  the  intended 
hunting-party,  had  been  admitted  into  the  antechamber,  rushing 
down-stairs  in  his  haste  to  spread  the  intelligence,  met  the  Count- 
ess de  Provence  on  the  staircase.  "  It  is  a  dauphin,  madame,"  he 
cried ;  "  what  a  happy  event !"  The  countess  made  him  no  re- 
ply. Nor  did  she  or  her  husband  pretend  to  disguise  their  mor- 
tification. The  Count  d'Artois  was  a  little  less  open  in  the  dis- 
play of  his  discontent,  which  was,  however,  sufficiently  notorious. 
But,  with  these  exceptions,  all  France,  or  at  least  all  France  suffi- 
ciently near  the  court  to  feel  any  personal  interest  in  its  concerns, 
was  unanimous  in  its  exultation. 

As  soon  as  the  new-born  child  was  dressed,  his  father  took  him 
in  his  arms,  and,  carrying  him  to  the  window,  showed  him  to  the 
crowdf  which,  on  the  first  news  of  the  queen's  illness,  had  throng- 
ed the  court-yard,  and  was  waiting  in  breathless  expectation  the 
result.  A  rumor  had  already  begun  to  penetrate  the  throng  that 
the  child  was  a  son,  and  the  moment  that  the  happy  tidings  were 
confirmed,  and  the  infant — their  future  king,  as  they  undoubting- 

*  Gustave  III.,"  etc.,  i.,  p.  358.  f  "  Memoires  de  Weber,"  i.,  p.  60. 


GENERAL  REJOICINOS.  179 

ly  hailed  him — was  presented  to  their  view,  their  joy  broke  forth 
in  such  vociferous  acclamations  that  it  became  necessary  to  si- 
lence them  by  an  appeal  to  them  to  show  consideration  for  the 
mother's  weakness. 

For  the  next  three  months  all  was  joy  and  festivity.  When 
the  little  Due  d'AngoulSme,  now  a  sprightly  boy  of  six  years  old, 
was  taken  into  the  nursery  to  see,  or,  in  the  court  language,  to 
pay  his  homage  to,  the  heir  to  the  throne,  he  said  to  his  father, 
"as  he  left  the  room,  "  Papa,  how  little  my  cousin  is !"  "  The  day 
will  come,  my  boy,"  replied  the  count,  "  when  you  will  find  him 
quite  great  enough."  And  it  seemed  as  if  the  whole  nation,  and 
especially  the  city  of  Paris,  thought  no  celebration  of  the  birth  of 
its  future  king  could  be  too  sumptuous  for  his  greatness.  It  was 
a  real  heart-felt  joy  that  was  awakened  in  the  people.  On  the  day 
following  the  birth,  chroniclers  of  the  time  remarked  that  no  oth- 
er subject  was  spoken  of;  that  even  strangers  stopped  one  an- 
other in  the  streets  to  exchange  congratulations.* 

The  different  trades  and  guilds  led  the  way  in  the  expression  of 
these  loyal  felicitations.  When  his  royal  highness  was  a  week 
old,  he  held  a  grand  reception.  Deputations  from  different  bod- 
ies of  artisans,  each  with  a  band  of  music  at  its  head,  and  each 
carrying  some  emblem  of  its  occupation,  marched  in  a  long  pro- 
cession to  Versailles.  The  chimney-sweeps  bore  aloft  a  chimney 
entwined  with  garlands,  on  the  top  of  which  was  perched  one  of 
the  smallest  of  their  boys ;  the  chairmen  carried  a  chair  superbly 
gilt,  on  which  sat  in  state  a  representative  of  the  royal  nurse,  with 
a  child  in  her  arms  in  royal  robes ;  the  butchers  drove  a  fat  ox ; 
the  pastry-cooks  bore  on  a  splendid  tray  a  variety  of  pastry  and 
sweetmeats  such  as  might  tempt  children  of  a  larger  growth  than 
the  little  prince  they  had  come  to  honor;  the  blacksmiths  beat 
an  anvil  in  time  to  their  cheers ;  the  shoe-makers  brought  a  pair 
of  miniature  boots ;  the  tailors  had  devoted  elaborate  and  minute 
pains  to  the  embroidering  of  a  uniform  of  the  dauphin's  regi- 
ment, such  as  might  even  now  fit  its  young  colonel,  if  his  parents 
would  permit  him  to  be  attired  in  it.  The  crowd  was  too  great 
to  be  received  in  even  the  largest  saloon  of  the  palace ;  but  it 
filled  the  court-yard  beneath ;  and,  as  the  weather  was  luckily  fa- 
vorable, the  dauphin  was  brought  to  the  balcony  and  displayed  to 

*  "  On  s'arretait  dans  les  rues,  on  se  parlait  sans  se  connaitre." — MADAME 
DE  CAMPAN,  ch.  ix. 


1  so  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

the  people,  while  they  greeted  him  with  cheers,  which  were  re- 
newed from  time  to  time,  even  after  he  had  been  withdrawn,  till 
the  shouting  seemed  as  if  it  would  have  no  end. 

One  deputation,  consisting  of  members  of  the  fairer  sex,  re- 
ceived even  higher  honors.  Fifty  ladies  of  the  fish-market  vindi- 
cated the  long-acknowledged  claims  of  their  body  by  forming  a 
separate  procession.  Each  dame  was  dressed  in  a  gown  of  rich 
black  silk,  their  established  court-dress,  and  nearly  every  one  had 
diamond  ornaments.  To  them,  the  celebrated  antechamber,  from 
the  oval  window  at  the  end  known  as  the  Bull's  Eye,  was  open- 
ed ;*  and  three  of  their  body  were  admitted  even  into  the  queen's 
room,  and  ta  the  side  of  the  bed.  The  popular  poet  La  Harpe, 
whom  the  partiality  of  Voltaire  had  designated  as  the  heir  of  his 
genius,  had  composed  an  address,  which  the  spokeswoman  of  the 
party  had  written  out  on  the  back  of  her  fan,  and  now  read  with 
a  sweet  voice,  which  had  procured  her  the  honor  of  being  so  se- 
lected,f  and  with  very  appropriate  delivery.  The  queen  made  a 
brief  but  most  gracious  answer,  and  then,  on  their  retirement,  the 
whole  company,  with  a  train  of  fish-women  of  the  lower  class,  was 
entertained  at  a  grand  banquet,  which  they  enlivened  with  songs 
composed  for  the  occasion.  One  of  them  so  hit  the  fancy  of  the 
king  and  queen  that  they  quoted  it  more  than  once  in  their  let- 
ters to  their  correspondents,  and  Marie  Antoinette  even  sung  it 
occasionally  to  her  harp : 

"  Ne  craignez  pas, 
Cher  papa, 

D'  voir  augmenter  vot'  famille, 
Le  Bon  Dieu  z'y  pourvoira : 
Fait's  en  tant  qu'  Versailles  en  fourmille 
Y  eut-il  cent  Bourbons  chez  nous, 
Y  a  du  pain,  du  laurier  pour  tous." 

The  body-guard  celebrated  the  auspicious  event  by  giving  a 
grand  ball  in  the  concert-room  of  the  palace  to  the  queen  on  her 
recovery ;  it  was  attended  by  the  whole  court,  and  Marie  Antoi- 
nette opened  it  herself,  dancing  a  minuet  with  one  of  the  troop, 
whom  his  comrades  had  selected  for  the  honor,  and  whom  the 
king  promoted,  as  a  memorial  of  the  occasion  and  as  a  testimony 
of  his  approval  of  the  loyalty  of  that  gallant  regiment. 

»  L'CEil  de  Bojuf. 

f  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  ix. ;  "  Marie  Antoinette,  Louis  XII.,  et  la  Famille 
Royale,"  p.  238. 


PUBLIC  THANKSGIVING  AFTER  FESTIVITIES.  181 

Amidst  all  the  troubles  of  later  years,  the  fidelity  of  those  noble 
troops  never  wavered.  They  had  even  in  one  hour  of  terrible 
danger  the  honor,  in  the  same  palace,  of  saving  the  life  of  their 
queen.  But  it  is  a  melancholy  proof  of  the  fleeting  character 
and  instability  of  popular  favor  which  is  supplied  by  the  recol- 
lection that  these  very  artisans  who  were  now  so  vociferous,  and 
undoubtedly  at  this  moment  so  sincere  in  their  profession  of  loy- 
alty, were  afterward  her  foul  and  ferocious  enemies.  And  yet  be- 
tween 1781  and  1789  there  had  been  no  change  in  the  character 
or  conduct  of  the  king  and  queen,  or  rather,  it  may  be  said,  the 
intervening  years  had  been  a  period  during  which  a  countless  se- 
ries of  acts  of  beneficence  had  displayed  their  unceasing  affection 
for  their  subjects. 

The  festivities  were  crowned  in  the  most  appropriate  manner 
by  a  public  thanksgiving,  offered  by  the  queen  herself  to  Heaven 
for  the  gift  of  a  son,  and  for  her  own  recovery.  But  that  cele- 
bration was  necessarily  postponed  till  her  strength  was  entirely 
re-established ;  and  it  was  not  till  the  21st  of  January  that  the 
physicians  would  allow  her  to  encounter  the  excitement  of  so  in- 
teresting but  fatiguing  a  day.  The  court  had  quit  Versailles  for 
La  Muette  the  day  before,  to  be  nearer  the  city ;  and  on  the  ap- 
pointed morning,  which  the  watchers  for  omens  delightedly  re- 
marked as  one  of  midsummer  brilliancy,*  the  most  superb  pro- 
cession that  even  Paris  had  ever  witnessed  issued  from  the  gates 
of  the  old  hunting-lodge,  whose  earlier  occupants  had  been  ani- 
mated by  a  very  different  spirit,  f 

That  the  honors  of  the  day  might  be  wholly  the  queen's,  Louis 
himself  did  not  accompany  her,  but  followed  her  three  hours 
later,  to  meet  her  at  the  H6tel  de  Ville.  Nineteen  coaches,  glit- 
tering with  burnished  gold,  and  every  panel  of  which  was  embel- 
lished with  crowns,  wreaths,  or  allegorical  pictures,  marching  on 
at  a  stately  walk  toward  the  city  gate,  conveyed  the  queen,  radi- 
ant with  beauty  and  happiness,  the  sisters  and  aunts  of  the  king, 
the  long  train  of  her  and  their  ladies,  and  all  the  great  officers  of 

*  "  Un  soleil  d'ete."— WEBER,  i.,  p.  58. 

f  La  Muette  derived  its  name  from  les  mues  of  the  deer  who  were  reared 
there.  It  had  been  enlarged  by  the  Regent  d'Orleans,  who  gave  it  to  his 
daughter,  the  Duchess  de  Berri ;  and  it  was  the  frequent  scene  of  the  orgies 
of  that  infamous  father  and  daughter,  while  more  recently  it  had  been  known 
as  the  Pare  aux  Cerfs,  under  which  title  it  had  acquired  a  still  more  infamous 
reputation. 


182  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

her  household.  Squadrons  of  the  body-guard  furnished  the  es- 
cort, riding  in  front  of  the  queen's  carriage  and  behind  it,  but  not 
on  either  side,  she  herself  having  forbidden  any  arrangement  which 
might  intercept  the  full  sight  of  herself  from  a  single  citizen. 
Companies  of  other  regiments  awaited  the  procession  at  different 
points,  and  closed  up  behind  it  as  it  passed,  swelling  the  vast  train 
which  thus  grew  at  every  step.  An  additional  escort,  almost  an 
army  in  itself,  in  double  rank,  lined  the  whole  road  from  the  bar- 
rier of  the  Champs  Elysees  to  the  gates  of  the  great  cathedral; 
and,  as  the  royal  coach  passed  through  the  city  gate,  a  herald 
proclaimed  that  "  The  king  wishing  to  consecrate  by  fresh  acts  of 
kindness  the  happy  moment  when  God  showered  his  mercies  on 
him  by  the  birth  of  a  dauphin,  and  at  the  same  time  to  give  to 
the  inhabitants  of  his  good  city  of  Paris  some  special  mark  of  his 
beneficence,  granted  an  exemption  from  the  poll-tax  to  all  the 
burgesses,  traders,  and  artisans  who  were  not  in  such  circumstances 
as  made  the  payment  easy." 

The  proclamation  was  received  with  all  the  thankfulness  of 
surprise ;  the  cheers,  which  had  never  ceased  from  the  moment 
that  the  procession  first  came  in  sight,  were  redoubled,  and  it  was 
amidst  shouts  of  congratulation  both  to  themselves  and  to  her 
that  the  queen  proceeded  onward  to  Notre  Dame.  Having  paid 
her  vows  and  made  her  offerings  in  the  cathedral  of  the  nation, 
she  passed  on  to  the  Church  of  Ste.  Genevieve,  the  especial  pa- 
troness of  the  city,  and  repeated  her  thanksgiving  before  the  tomb 
of  Clovis,  the  founder  of  the  monarchy.  At  the  H6tel  de  Ville 
she  was  met  by  the  king,  with  the  princess,  his  brothers,  the  great 
officers  of  his  household,  and  the  ministers ;  and  there  (after  hav- 
ing first  come  forward  on  the  balcony  to  afford  the  multitude, 
who  completely  filled  the  vast  square  in  front  of  the  building,  a 
sight  of  their  sovereigns),  the  royal  pair,  sitting  side  by  side,  pre- 
sided at  a  banquet  of  unsurpassed  magnificence  and  luxury.  In 
compliance  with  the  strictest  laws  of  the  old  etiquette,  none  but 
ladies  were  admitted  to  the  king's  table,  but  other  tables  were 
provided  for  the  male  guests.  The  most  renowned  musicians 
performed  the  sweetest  airs,  but  the  melodies  of  Gluck  and  Gre- 
try  were  drowned  in  the  cheers  of  the  multitude  outside,  who 
thus  relieved  their  impatience  for  the-  r&- appearance  of  their 
queen. 

The  banquet  was  succeeded  by  a  grand  reception,  with  its  sin- 


THE  ILLUMINATIONS.  183 

gular  but  invariable  accompaniment  of  a  gaming-table,*  and  the 
whole  was  concluded  by  a  grand  illumination  and  display  of  fire- 
works, in  which  the  pyrotechnists  had  exhausted  their  allegoric- 
al ingenuity.  A  Temple  of  Hymen  occupied  the  centre,  and  the 
God  of  Marriage — never,  so  far  as  present  appearances  indicated, 
more  auspiciously  employed — presented  to  France  the  precious  in- 
fant who  was  the  most  recent  fruit  of  his  favor ;  while  the  flame 
upon  his  altar,  which  never  had  burned  with  a  brighter  light,  was 
fed  by  the  thank-offerings  of  the  whole  French  people.  As  each 
new  feature  of  the  display  burst  upon  their  eyes,  the  acclamations 
of  the  populace  redoubled,  and  their  enthusiasm  was  kindled  to 
the  utmost  pitch  when  Louis  and  Marie  Antoinette  descended  the 
stairs,  and,  arm-in-arm,  walked  out  among  the  crowd,  ostensibly  to 
see  the  illuminations  from  the  different  points  which  presented 
the  most  imposing  spectacle ;  but  really,  as  the  citizens  perceived, 
to  show  their  sympathy  with  the  joy  of  the  people  by  mingling 
with  the  multitude,  and  thus  allowing  all  to  approach  and  even 
to  accost  them ;  while  they,  and  especially  the  queen,  replied  to 
every  loyal  cheer  or  homely  word  of  congratulation  by  a  cordial 
smile  or  expression  of  approval  or  thanks,  which  long  dwelt  in 
the  memory  of  those  to  whom  they  were  addressed. 

*  "  Apres  le  diner  il  y  eut  appartement  jeu,  et  la  fete  fut  termin6e  par  un 
feu  d'artifice." — WEBER,  i.,  p.  57,  from  whom  the  greater  part  of  those  de- 
tails are  taken.  For  the  etiquette  of  the  "jeu,"  see  Madame  de  Campan, 
ch.  ix.,  p.  17,  and  2  ed.  1858. 


184  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

Madame  de  Guiraenee  resigns  the  Office  of  Governess  of  the  Royal  Children. 
— Madame  de  Polignac  succeeds  her. — Marie  Antoinette's  Views  of  Educa- 
tion.— Character  of  Madame  Royale. — The  Grand  Duke  Paul  and  his  Grand 
Duchess  visit  the  French  Court. — Their  Characters. — Entertainments  given 
in  their  Honor. — Insolence  of  the  Cardinal  de  Rohan. — His  Character  and 
previous  Life. — Grand  Festivities  at  Chantilly. — Events  of  the  War. — Rod- 
ney defeats  de  -Grasse. — The  Siege  of  Gibraltar  fails. — M.  de  Suff rein  fights 
five  Drawn  Battles  with  Sir  E.  Hughes  in  the  Indian  Seas. — The  Queen  re- 
ceives him  with  great  Honor  on  his  Return. 

THE  post  of  governess  to  the  royal  children  was  one  which  was 
conferred  for  life,  and  did  not  even  cease  on  the  accession  of  a 
new  sovereign,  and  the  birth  of  a  new  royal  family.  Madame  de 
Guimenee,  therefore,  having  been  appointed  to  that  office  on  the 
birth  of  the  first  child  of  the  late  dauphin,  the  father  of  Louis 
XVI.,  still  retained  it,  and  on  the  birth  of  Madame  Royale  trans- 
ferred her  services  to  that  princess.  The  arrangement  had  been 
far  from  acceptable  to  Marie  Antoinette,  who  had  no  great  lik- 
ing for  the  lady,  though,  with  her  habitual  kindness  of  disposition, 
she  had  accepted  her  attentions,  and  had  often  condescended  to 
appear  as  a  guest  at  her  evening  parties,  taking  only  the  precau- 
tion of  ascertaining  beforehand  whom  she  was  likely  to  meet 
there.*  But,  in  the  spring  of  1 782,  the  Prince  de  Guimenee  be- 
came involved  in  pecuniary  difficulties  that  compelled  him  to  re- 
tire from  the  court,  and  his  princess  to  resign  her  appointment, 
which  Marie  Antoinette  at  once  bestowed  on  Madame  de  Poli- 
gnac. Her  attachment  to  that  lady  affords  a  striking  exemplifica- 
tion of  one  feature  in  her  character,  a  steady  adherence  to  friend- 
ships once  formed,  which  can  never  be  otherwise  than  amiable, 
even  when,  as  it  may  be  thought  was  the  case  in  this  and  one  or 
two  other  instances,  she  carried  it  to  excess ;  for  she  could  hardly 
fail  to  be  aware  that  Madame  de  Polignac  was  most  unpopular 
with  all  classes,  and  that  her  unpopularity  was  not  undeserved. 
She  was  covetous  for  herself,  and  she  had  a  number  of  relations, 


*  Mercy  to  Maria  Teresa,  June  18th,  1780,  Arneth  iii.,  p.  440. 


HER  EDUCATION  OF  HER   CHILDREN.  185 

equally  rapacious,  who  regarded  her  court  favor  solely  as  a  means 
of  enriching  the  whole  family.  She  had  procured  a  valuable  re- 
version for  her  husband ;  and  subsequently  the  rare  favor  of  an 
hereditary  dukedom ;  and  it  was  characteristic  of  her  disposition 
that  she  might  have  attained  the  rank  of  duchess  for  herself  at  an 
earlier  date,  but  that  she  preferred  to  it  the  chance  of  other  fa- 
vors of  a  more  practically  useful  nature ;  nor  was  it  till  she  had 
received  such  sums  of  money  that  nothing  more  could  well  be 
asked,  that  she  turned  her  ambition  to  titles,  and  to  the  much-cov- 
eted dignity  of  a  stool  to  sit  upon  in  the  presence  of  royalty.* 

But  the  more  people  spoke  ill  of  her,  the  more  the  queen  pro- 
tected her;  and  if  she  received  the  resignation  of  Madame  de 
Guimenee  with  pleasure,  much  of  her  joy  seemed  to  be  owing  to 
the  opportunity  which  it  afforded  her  of  promoting  the  new  duch- 
ess to  the  vacant  place,  while  Madame  de  Polignac  had  even  the 
address  to  persuade  her  that  she  accepted  the  post  unwillingly, 
and,  in  undertaking  it,  was  making  a  sacrifice  to  loyalty  and 
friendship.  But  if  the  queen  was  duped  on  that  point,  she  was 
not  deceived  on  others.  She  knew  that  the  duchess  had  no  quali- 
fications for  the  office ;  that  she  was  neither  clever  nor  accomplish- 
ed. But  her  absence  of  any  special  qualifications  was,  in  fact,  her 
best  recommendation  in  the  eyes  of  her  patroness ;  for  Marie  An- 
toinette had  high  ideas  of  the  duty  which  a  mother  owes  to  her 
children.  She  thought  herself  bound  to  take  upon  herself  the 
real  superintendence  of  their  education,  and,  having  this  view,  she 
preferred  a  governess  who  would  be  content  that  her  children's 
minds  should  receive  their  color  from  herself.  Her  own  idea  of 
education,  as  we  shall  see  it  hereafter  described  by  herself,f  was 
that  example  was  more  powerful  than  precept,  and  that  love  was 
a  better  teacher  than  fear ;  and,  acting  on  this  principle,  from  the 
moment  that  her  little  daughter  was  old  enough  to  comprehend 
her  intentions  and  wishes,  she  began  to  make  her  her  companion ; 
abandoning,  or  at  least  relaxing,  her  pursuit  of  other  pleasures  for 
that  which  was  now  her  chief  delight,  as  well  as  in  her  eyes  her 
chief  duty  —  the  task  of  watching  over  the  early  promise,  the 
opening  talents  and  virtues  of  those  who  were  destined,  as  she 
hoped,  to  have  a  predominant  influence  on  the  future  welfare  of 
the  nation.  Especially  she  made  a  rule  of  taking  the  little  prin- 

*  Le  tabouret.     See  St.  Simon. 

f  See  infra,  the  queen's  letter  to  Madame  de  Tourzel,  date  July  25th,  1789. 


186  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

cess  with  her  on  the  different  errands  of  humanity  and  benevo- 
lence, which,  wherever  she  might  be,  and  more  particularly  while 
she  was  at  Versailles,  formed  an  almost  habitual  part  of  her  occu- 
pations. She  saw  that  much  of  the  distress  which  now  seemed 
to  be  the  normal  condition  of  the  humbler  classes,  and  much  of 
the  discontent,  which  was  felt  by  all  classes  but  the  highest,  were 
caused  by  the  pride  of  the  princes  and  nobles,  who,  in  France, 
drew  a  far  more  rigorous  and  unbending  line  of  demarkation  be- 
tween themselves  and  their  inferiors  than  prevailed  in  other  coun- 
tries; and  she  desired  from  their  earliest  infancy  to  imbue  her 
children  with  a  different  principle,  and  to  teach  them  by  her  own 
example  that  none  could  be  so  lowly  as  to  be  beneath  the  notice 
even  of  a  sovereign ;  and  that,  on  the  contrary,  the  greater  the  de- 
pression of  the  poor,  the  greater  claim  did  it  give  them  on  the  so- 
licitude and  protection  of  their  princes  and  rulers. 

Nor  were  these  lessons,  which  even  worldly  policy  might  have 
dictated,  the  only  ones  which  she  sought  to  inculcate  on  the  little 
princess  before  the  more  exciting  pursuits  of  society  should  have 
rendered  her  less  susceptible  to  good  impressions.  Unfriendly  as 
her  husband's  aunts  had  always  been  to  herself,  and  little  as  there 
was  that  was  really  amiable  in  their  characters,  there  was  yet  one, 
the  Princess  Louise,  the  Nun  of  St.  Denis,  whose  renunciation  of 
the  world  seemed  to  point  her  out  to  her  family  as  a  model  of  ho- 
liness and  devotion ;  and  as,  above  all  things,  Marie  Antoinette  de- 
sired to  inspire  her  little  daughter  with  a  deep  sense  of  religious 
obligation,  she  soon  began  to  take  her  with  her  in  all  her  visits  to 
the  convent,  and  to  encourage  her  to  converse  with  the  other  Sis- 
ters of  the  house.  Nor  did  she  abandon  the  practice  even  when 
it  was  suggested  to  her  that  such  an  intercourse  with  those  who 
were  notoriously  always  on  the  watch  to  attract  recruits  of  rank 
or  consideration,  might  have  the  result  of  inclining  the  child  to 
follow  her  great-aunt's  example ;  and  perhaps,  by  renouncing  the 
world,  to  counteract  plans  which  her  parents  might  have  prefer- 
red for  her  establishment  in  life.  Marie  Antoinette  declared  that 
should  the  princess  express  such  a  desire,  far  from  being  annoyed, 
"she  should  feel  flattered  by  it;"*  she  would,  it  may  be  presumed, 
have  regarded  it  as  a  convincing  testimony  of  the  soundness  of 
her  own  system  of  education,  and  of  the  purity  of  the  instruction 
which  she  had  given. 

*  "  Souvenirs  de  Quarante  Ans,"  by  Mademoiselle  de  Tourzel,  p.  20. 


THE  GRAND  DUKE  AND  THE  GRAND  DUCHESS.        187 

But  such  was  not  to  be  the  destiny  of  her  whose  life  at  this 
moment  seemed  to  beam  with  prospects  of  happiness  which  it 
would  have  been  cruel  to  allow  her  to  exchange  for  the  gloom 
of  a  convent,  though,  even  before  she  arrived  at  womanhood,  the 
most  austere  seclusion  of  such  an  abode  would  have  seemed  a 
welcome  asylum  from  dangers  yet  undreamed  of.  Her  destiny 
was  indeed  to  be  one  of  trials  and  afflictions  even  to  the  end ;  tri- 
als very  different  in  their  kind  from  those  which  the  gates  of  the 
Carmelite  sisterhood  would  have  opened  to  her.  But  her  moth- 
er's early  lessons  of  humility  and  piety,  and  still  more  her  moth- 
er's virtuous  and  heroic  example,  never  ceased  to  bear  their  fruit 
in  their  influence  on  her  character,  amidst  all  the  vicissitudes  of 
fortune.  The  unhappy  daughter,*  as  she  was  styled  by  the  faith- 
ful and  eloquent  champion  of  her  race,  lived  to  win  the  respect 
even  of  its  enemies,  f  supplying,  at  more  than  one  critical  moment, 
a  courage  and  decision  of  which  her  male  relatives  were  destitute ; 
and,  in  the  second  and  final  ruin  of  her  house,  her  fortitude  and 
resignation  still  commanded  the  loyal  adherence  of  a  large  party 
among  her  countrymen,  and  the  esteem  of  foreign  statesmen,  who 
gladly  recognized  in  her  no  small  portion  of  the  nobility  of  her 
female  ancestors. 

In  the  spring  of  1782  the  attention  of  the  Parisians  was  occu- 
pied for  a  while  by  the  arrival  of  two  visitors  from  a  nation  which 
as  yet  had  sent  forth  but  few  of  its  sons  to  mingle  in  society  with 
those  of  other  countries.  The  Grand  Duke  of  Russia,  who  had  in- 
deed been  its  rightful  emperor  ever  since  the  murder  of  his  father 
twenty  years  before,  but  who  had  been  compelled  to  postpone  his 
claims  to  those  of  his  ambitious  and  unscrupulous  mother,  Cath- 
erine II.,  had  conceived  a  desire  so  far  to  imitate  the  example  of 
his  great  ancestor,  the  founder  of  the  Russian  empire,  Peter  the 
Great,  as  to  make  a  personal  investigation  of  the  manners  of  other 
people  besides  his  own.  To  use  the  language  in  which  the  em- 
press communicated  to  Louis  XVI.  her  son's  wish  to  pay  him  a 
visit,  he  sought,  in  the  first  instance,  "  to  take  lessons  in  courte- 
sy and  nobility  from  the  most  elegant  court  in  the  world."  And 
as  Louis  had  responded  with  a  cordial  invitation  to  Versailles,  at 
the  end  of  May  he,  with  his  grand  duchess,  a  princess  of  Wurtem- 
berg,  arrived  at  the  palace. 

*  "  Filia  dolorosa." — CHATEACBRIAND. 

f  Napoleon,  in  1814,  called  her  the  only  man  of  her  family. 


188  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

Paul  had  not  as  yet  given  any  indications  of  the  brutal  and  fe- 
rocious disposition  which  distinguished  him  in  his  later  years,  till 
it  gradually  developed  into  a  savage  insanity  which  neither  his  no- 
bles nor  even  his  sons  could  endure.  He  appeared  rather  a  young 
man  of  frank  and  open  temper,  somewhat  more  unguarded  in  his 
language,  especially  concerning  his  own  affairs  and  position,  than 
was  quite  prudent  or  becoming ;  but  kind  in  intention,  sometimes 
even  courteous  in  manner,  shrewd  in  discerning  what  things  and 
what  persons  were  most  worthy  of  his  notice,  and  showing  no 
deficiency  of  judgment  in  the  observations  which  he  made  upon 
them.  The  grand  duchess,  however,  was  generally  regarded  as 
greatly  superior  to  her  husband  in  every  respect.  He  was  almost 
repulsive  in  his  ugliness.  She  was  extremely  handsome  in  feature, 
though  disfigured  by  a  stoutness  extraordinary  in  one  so  young. 
She  had  also  a  high  reputation  for  accomplishments  and  general 
ability,  though  that  too  was  disguised  by  a  coldness  or  ungra- 
ciousness of  manner  that  gave  strangers  a  disagreeable  impression 
of  her ;  which,  however,  a  more  intimate  acquaintance  greatly  re- 
moved. 

Their  characters  had  preceded  them,  and  Marie  Antoinette,  for 
perhaps  the  first  time  in  her  life,  felt  very  uneasy  as  to  her  own 
power  of  receiving  them  with  the  dignity  which  became  both  her 
and  them.  As  she  afterward  explained  her  feelings  to  Madame 
de  Campan,  "  she  found  the  part  of  a  queen  much  more  difficult 
to  play  in  the  presence  of  other  sovereigns,  or  of  princes  who  were 
born  to  become  sovereigns,  than  before  ordinary  courtiers."*  She 
even  fortified  her  courage  before  dinner  with  a  glass  of  water,  and 
the  medicine  proved  effectual.  Even  if  it  cost  her  an  effort  to  pre- 
serve her  habitual  gayety,  her  difficulty  was  unperceived,  and,  in- 
deed, after  the  few  first  moments,  ceased  to  be  a  difficulty.  Paul 
himself  cared  but  little  for  female  attractions  or  graces ;  but  the 
archduchess  was  charmed  with  her  union  of  liveliness  and  dignity, 
which  surpassed  all  her  previous  experiences  of  courts ;  and  one 
of  her  ladies,  Madame  d'Oberkirch,  who  has  left  behind  her  some 
memoirs,  to  which  all  succeeding  writers  have  been  indebted  for 
many  particulars  of  this  visit,  could  scarcely  find  words  to  describe 
the  impression  the  queen's  beauty  had  made  upon  her  and  all  her 
fellow-travelers.  "  The  queen  was  marvelously  beautiful ;  she  fas- 
cinated every  eye.  It  was  absolutely  impossible  for  any  one  to 

*  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  x. 


THE  CARDINAL  DE  ROHAN.  189 

display  a  greater  grace  and  nobility  of  demeanor."*  Madame 
d'Oberkirch,  like  herself,  was  German  by  birth ;  and  Marie  Antoi- 
nette begged  her  to  speak  German  to  her,  that  she  might  refresh 
her  recollection  of  her  native  language ;  but  she  found  that  she 
had  almost  forgotten  it.  "Ah,"  said  she,  "German  is  a  fine  lan- 
guage ;  but  French,  in  the  mouths  of  my  children,  seems  to  me 
the  finest  language  in  the  world."  And  in  the  same  spirit  of  en- 
tire adoption  of  French  feelings,  and  even  of  French  prejudices, 
she  declared  to  the  baroness  that  though  the  Rhine  and  the  Dan- 
ube were  both  noble  rivers,  the  Seine  was  so  much  more  beauti- 
ful that  it  had  made  her  forget  them  both. 

But  her  preference  for  every  thing  French  did  not  make  her 
neglect  the  duties  of  hospitality  to  her  foreign  visitors ;  she  wish- 
ed rather  that  they  should  carry  with  them  as  fixed  an  idea  as 
she  herself  entertained  of  the  superiority  of  France  to  their  own 
country,  in  this  as  in  every  other  particular.  And  she  gave  two 
magnificent  entertainments  in  their  honor  at  the  Little  Trianon, 
displaying  the  beauties  of  her  garden  by  day,  and  also  by  night, 
by  an  illumination  of  extraordinary  splendor.  They  were  highly 
delighted  with  the  beauty  and  the  novelty  of  a  scene  such  as  they 
had  never  before  witnessed;  but  her  pleasure  was  in  a  great  de- 
gree marred  by  the  indecent  boldness  of  one  whose  sacred  profes- 
sion, as  well  as  his  ancient  lineage,  ought  to  have  restrained  him 
from  such  misconduct,  though  it  was  but  too  completely  in  har- 
mony with  his  previous  life.  Prince  Louis  de  Rohan  was  a  de- 
scendant of  the  great  Duke  de  Sully,  and  a  member  of  a  family 
which,  during  the  last  reign,  had  possessed  an  influence  at  court 
which  was  surpassed  by  that  of  no  other  house  among  the  French 
nobles.f  He  himself  had  reaped  the  full  advantage  of  its  inter- 
est. As  we  have  already  seen,  he  had  been  coadjutor  of  Stras- 
burg  when  Marie  Antoinette  passed  through  that  city  on  her  way 
to  France  in  1770.  He  had  subsequently  been  promoted  to  the 
rank  of  cardinal ;  and,  though  he  was  notoriously  devoid  of  ca- 
pacity, yet  through  the  influence  of  his  relations,  and  that  of 
Madame  du  Barri,  with  whom  they  maintained  an  intimate  con- 
nection, he  had  obtained  the  post  of  embassador  to  the  court  of 

*  "  Memoires  de  Madame  d'Oberkirch,"  i.,  p.  279. 

f  The  Marshal  Prince  de  Soubise,  whose  incapacity  and  cowardice  caused 
the  disgraceful  rout  of  Rosbach,  was  the  head  of  this  family ;  his  sister,  Ma- 
dame Marsan,  as  governess  of  the  "  children  of  France,"  had  brought  up 
Louis  XVI. 


190  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

Vienna,  where  he  had  made  himself  conspicuous  for  every  species 
of  disorder.  His  whole  life  in  the  Austrian  capital  had  been  a 
round  of  shameless  profligacy  and  extravagance.  The  conduct 
of  the  inferior  members  of  the  embassy,  stimulated  by  his  exam- 
ple, and  protected  by  his  official  character,  had  been  equally  scan- 
dalous, till  at  last  Maria  Teresa  had  felt  herself  bound,  in  justice 
to  her  subjects,  to  insist  on  his  recall.  The  moment  that  he  be- 
came aware  that  his  position  was  in  danger,  lie  began  to  write 
abusive  letters  against  the  Empress-queen,  and  to  circulate  libels 
at  Vienna  against  both  her  and  Marie  Antoinette,  on  whom  he 
openly  threatened  to  avenge  himself,  if  his  pleasures  or  his  pros- 
pects should  in  any  way  be  interfered  with.* 

Since  his  return  to  France  he  had  had  the  address  to  conciliate 
Maurepas,  who,  adding  the  authority  of  his  ministerial  office  to 
the  solicitations  of  the  cardinal's  sister,  Madame  de  Marsan,  had 
succeeded  in  wringing  from  the  unwilling  king  his  appointment 
to  the  honorable  and  lucrative  preferment  of  grand  almoner. 
But  even  that  post,  though  it  made  him  one  of  the  great  officers 
of  the  court,  did  not  weaken  his  desire  to  annoy  the  queen,  for 
having,  as  he  believed,  used  her  influence  to  deprive  him  of  his 
embassy,  and  for  having  by  her  marked  coldness  since  his  return 
from  Vienna,  showed  her  disapproval  of  his  profligate  character, 
and  of  his  insolence  to  her  mother. 

And,  unhappily,  there  were  not  wanting  persons  base  enough  to 
co-operate  with  him,  generally  discredited  as  he  was,  as  instru- 
ments of  their  own  secret  malice.  The  birth  of  the  dauphin  had 
been  a  fatal  blow  to  the  hopes  which  had  been  founded  on  the 
possible  succession  of  the  king's  brothers ;  and  from  this  time 
forth  the  whisperers  of  detraction  and  calumny  were  more  than 
ever  busy,  sometimes  venturing  to  forge  her  handwriting,  and 
sometimes  daring,  with  still  fouler  audacity,  to  invent  stories  de- 
signed to  tarnish  her  reputation  by  throwing  doubts  on  her  con- 
jugal fidelity.  At  such  a  moment  the  presence  of  such  a  man 
as  the  cardinal  on  the  stage  was  an  evil  omen.  His  audacity,  it 
seemed,  could  hardly  be  purposeless,  and  his  purpose  could  not 
be  innocent. 

He  had  been  most  anxious  to  obtain  admission  to  one  of  the 


*  "  II  [Rohan]  a  meme  menac£,  si  on  ne  veut  pas  prendre  le  bon  chcmin 
qui  lui  indique,  que  ma  fille  s'en  ressentira."  —  Marie- Therese  d  Mercy,  Au- 
gust 28th,  1774,  Arneth,  ii.,  p.  226. 


UNWILLINGNESS  TO  BURDEN  THE  TREASURY.         191 

entertainments  which  the  queen  gave  to  the  Russian  princes; 
and,  when  he  was  disappointed,  he  had  the  silly  audacity  to  bribe 
the  porter  of  the  Trianon  to  admit  him  into  the  garden,  where, 
as  the  royal  party  passed  down  the  different  walks,  he  thrust  him- 
self ostentatiously  at  different  points  into  their  sight,  professing 
to  disguise  himself  by  throwing  a  mantle  over  his  shoulders,  but 
taking  care  that  his  scarlet  stockings  should  prevent  any  uncer- 
tainty from  being  felt  as  to  his  identity.  That  he  should  have 
presumed  to  intrude  into  the  queen's  presence  in  her  own  palace 
without  permission  was  in  itself  an  insult ;  but  those  behind  the 
scenes  believed  that  he  had  a  deeper  design,  and  that  he  wished 
to  diffuse  a  belief  that  Marie  Antoinette  secretly  regarded  him 
with  a  favor  which  she  was  unwilling  to  show  openly,  and  that 
he  had  not  obtained  admission  to  her  garden  without  her  con- 
nivance. 

The  princes  of  the  blood,  too,  the  Prince  de  Conde  and  the 
Duke  de  Bourbon,  invited  Paul  and  his  archduchess  to  an  enter- 
tainment at  Chantilly,  which  far  surpassed  in  splendor  the  display 
at  Trianon.  But  the  queen  was  willing,  on  such  an  occasion,  to 
be  eclipsed  by  her  subjects.  "  The  princes,"  she  said,  "  might 
well  give  festivities  of  vast  cost,  because  they  defrayed  the  charges 
out  of  their  private  revenues ;  but  the  expenses  of  entertainments 
given  by  the  king  or  by  herself  fell  on  the  national  treasury,  of 
which  they  were  bound  to  be  the  guardians  in  the  interest  of  the 
poor  tax-payers." 

Not  that,  in  all  probability,  Paul  and  his  archduchess  noticed 
the  inferiority.  Court  festivities  at  St.  Petersburg  were  as  yet 
neither  numerous  nor  magnificent,  and  they  soon  showed  them- 
selves so  wearied  with  the  round  of  gayety  which  had  been  forced 
upon  them,  that  some  of  the  diversions  which  had  been  projected 
at  other  royal  palaces  besides  Versailles  were  given  up  to  avoid 
distressing  them.*  The  sight  which  pleased  them  most  was  the 
play,  to  which,  at  their  own  special  request,  the  queen  accompa- 
nied them,  and  where  they  were  greatly  struck  by  the  magnificence 
of  the  theatre  and  every  thing  connected  with  the  performance, 
as  well  as  with  the  reception  which  the  audience  gave  the  queen. 
Much  as  they  had  admired  what  they  had  seen,  it  was  her  grace 


*  <<• 


'  l\a  paraissent  si  exc£des  du  grand  monde  et  des  f Stes,  qu'avec  d'autres 
petitcs  difficultes  qui  se  sont  elevees,  nous  avons  decide  qu'il  n'y  aurait  rien 
&  Marly." — Marie  Antoinette  to  Mercy  ;  Marie  Antoinette,  Joseph  II.,  and  Leo- 
pold II.,  p.  27. 


192  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

and  kind  solicitude  for  their  gratification  which  made  the  great- 
est impression  on  them ;  and  the  archduchess  kept  up  a  cor- 
respondence with  her  during  the  rest  of  their  travels,  especially 
dwelling  on  the  scenes  which  pleased  her  most  in  Germany,  and 
on  the  persons  she  met  who  were  known  to  and  regarded  by  the 
queen. 

Political  affairs  were  at  this  time  causing  Marie  Antoinette 
great  anxiety.  One  of  her  most  frequently  expressed  wishes  had 
been  that  the  French  fleet  should  have  an  opportunity  of  enga- 
ging that  of  England  in  a  pitched  battle,  when  the  judicious  care 
which  M.  de  Sartines  had  bestowed  on  the  marine  would  be  seen 
to  bear  its  fruit.  But  when  the  battle  did  take  place,  the  result 
was  such  as  to  confound  instead  of  justifying  her  patriotic  expec- 
tations. In  April,  the  English  Admiral  Rodney  inflicted  on  the 
Count  de  Grasse  a  crushing  defeat  off  the  coast  of  Jamaica.  In 
September,  the  combined  forces  of  France  and  Spain  were  beaten 
off  with  still  heavier  loss  from  the  impregnable  fortress  of  Gibral- 
tar ;  and  the  only  region  in  which  a  French  admiral  escaped  disaster 
was  the  Indian  Sea,  where  the  Bailli  de  Suffrein,  an  officer  of  rare 
energy  and  ability,  encountered  the  British  admiral,  Sir  Edward 
Hughes,  in  a  series  of  severe  actions,  and,  except  on  one  occasion 
in  which  he  lost  a  few  transports,  never  permitted  his  antagonist 
to  claim  any  advantage  over  him ;  the  single  loss  which  he  sus- 
tained in  his  first  combat  being  more  than  counterbalanced  by  his 
success  on  land,  where,  by  the  aid  of  Hyder  Ali's  son,  the  cele- 
brated Tippoo,  he  made  himself  master  of  Cuddalore ;  and  then, 
dropping  down  to  the  Cingalese  coast,  recaptured  Trincomalee, 
the  conquest  of  which  had  been  one  of  Hughes's  most  recent 
achievements.*  The  queen  felt  the  reverses  keenly.  She  even 
curtailed  some  of  her  own  expenses  in  order  to  contribute  to  the 
building  of  new  ships  to  replace  those  which  had  been  lost ;  and 
she  received  M.  de  Suffrein,  on  his  return  from  India  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  war,  with  the  most  sincere  and  marked  congratula- 
tions. She  invited  him  to  the  palace,  and,  when  he  arrived,  she 
caused  Madame  de  Polignac  to  bring  both  her  children  into  the 
room.  "  My  children,"  said  she,  "  and  especially  you,  my  son, 

*  "  No  fewer  than  five  actions  were  fought  in  1782,  and  the  spring  of  1783, 
by  these  unwearied  foes.  De  Suffrein's  force  was  materially  the  stronger  of 
the  two ;  it  consisted  of  ten  sail  of  the  line,  one  fifty-gun  ship,  and  four  frig- 
ates ;  while  Sir  E.  Hughes  had  but  eight  sail  of  the  line,  a  fifty-gun  ship,  and 
one  frigate."  See  the  author's  "  History  of  the  British  Navy,"  i.,  p.  400. 


M.  DE  SUFFREIN  RECEIVED   WITH  HONOR.  193 

know  that  this  is  M.  de  Suffrein.  We  are  all  under  the  greatest 
obligations  to  him.  Look  well  at  him,  and  ever  remember  his 
name.  It  is  one  of  the  first  that  all  my  children  must  learn  to 
pronounce,  and  one  which  they  must  never  forget."* 

She  was  acting  up  to  her  mother's  example,  than  whom  no 
sovereign  had  better  known  how  to  give  their  due  honor  to  brav- 
ery and  loyalty.  Such  a  queen  deserved  to  have  faithful  friends ; 
and  Suffrein  was  a  man  who,  had  his  life  been  spared,  might,  like 
the  Marquis  de  Bouille,  have  shown  that  even  in  France  the  feel- 
ings of  chivalry  and  devotion  to  kings  and  ladies  were  not  yet  ex- 
tinguished. But  he  died  before  either  his  country  or  his  queen 
had  again  need  of  his  services,  or  before  he  had  any  opportunity 
of  proving  by  fresh  achievements  his  gratitude  to  a  sovereign  who 
knew  so  well  how  to  appreciate  and  to  honor  merit. 

*  Weber,  i.,  p.  77.  For  the  importance  at  this  time  attached  to  a  reception 
at  court,  see  Chateaubriand,  "  Memoires  d'Outre-tombe,"  i.,  p.  221. 

13 


194  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Peace  is  re-established. — Embarrassments  of  the  Ministry. — Distress  of  the 
Kingdom.  —  M.  de  Calonne  becomes  Finance  Minister.  —  The  Winter  of 
1783-'84  is  very  Severe. — The  Queen  devotes  Large  Sums  to  Charity. — Her 
Political  Influence  increases. — Correspondence  between  the  Emperor  and 
her  on  European  Politics. — The  State  of  France. — The  Baron  de  Breteuil. — 
Her  Description  of  the  Character  of  the  King. 

THE  conclusion  of  peace  between  France  and  England  was  one 
of  the  earliest  events  of  the  year  1783,  but  it  brought  no  strength 
to  the  ministry ;  or,  rather,  it  placed  its  weakness  in  a  more  con- 
spicuous light.  Maurepas  had  died  at  the  end  of  1781,  and,  since 
his  death,  the  Count  de  Vergennes  had  been  the  chief  adviser  of 
the  king ;  but  his  attention  was  almost  exclusively  directed  to  the 
conduct  of  the  diplomacy  of  the  kingdom,  and  to  its  foreign  af- 
fairs, and  he  made  no  pretensions  to  financial  knowledge.  Un- 
luckily the  professed  ministers  of  finance,  Joly  de  Fleury  and  his 
successor,  D'Ormesson,  were  as  ignorant  of  that  great  subject  as 
himself,  and,  within  two  years  after  Necker's  retirement,  their  mis- 
management had  brought  the  kingdom  to  the  very  verge  of  bank- 
ruptcy. D'Ormesson  was  dismissed,  and  for  many  days  it  was 
anxiously  deliberated  in  the  palace  by  whom  he  should  be  re- 
placed. Some  proposed  that  Necker  should  be  recalled,  but  the 
king  had  felt  himself  personally  offended  by  some  circumstances 
which  had  attended  the  resignation  of  that  minister  two  years  be- 
fore. The  queen  inclined  to  favor  the  pretensions  of  Lomenie  de 
Brienne,  Archbishop  of  Toulouse ;  not  because  he  had  any  official 
experience,  but  because  fifteen  years  before  he  had  recommended 
the  Abbe  de  Vermond  to  Maria  Teresa ;  and  the  abbe,  seeing  in 
the  present  embarrassment  an  opportunity  of  repaying  the  obli- 
gation, now  spoke  highly  to  her  of  the  archbishop's  talents.  But 
Madame  de  Polignac  and  her  party  persuaded  her  majesty  to  ac- 
quiesce in  the  appointment  of  M.  de  Calonne,  a  man  who,  like 
Turgot,  had  already  distinguished  himself  as  intendant  of  a  prov- 
ince, though  he  had  not  inspired  those  who  watched  his  career 
with  as  high  an  opinion  of  his  uprightness  as  of  his  talents.  He 


EMBARRASSMENTS  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  195 

had  also  secured  the  support  of  the  Count  d'Artois  by  promising 
to  pay  his  debts;  and  Louis  himself  was  won  to  think  well  of 
him  by  the  confidence  which  he  expressed  in  his  own  capacity  to 
grapple  with  the  existing,  or  even  with  still  greater  difficulties. 

Nor,  indeed,  had  he  been  possessed  of  steadiness,  prudence, 
and  principle,  was  he  very  unfit  for  such  a  post  at  such  a  time. 
For  he  was  very  fertile  in  resources,  and  well-endowed  with  both 
physical  and  moral  courage;  but  these  faculties  were  combined 
with,  were  indeed  the  parents  of,  a  mischievous  defect.  He  had 
such  reliance  on  his  own  ingenuity  and  ability  to  deal  with  each 
difficulty  or  danger  as  it  should  arise,  that  he  was  indifferent  to 
precautions  which  might  prevent  it  from  arising.  The  spirit 
in  which  he  took  office  was  exemplified  in  one  of  his  first  speech- 
es to  the  queen.  Knowing  that  he  was  not  the  minister  whom 
she  would  have  preferred,  he  made  it  his  especial  business  to  win 
her  confidence ;  and  he  had  not  been  long  installed  in  office  when 
she  expressed  to  him  her  wish  that  he  would  find  means  of  ac- 
complishing some  object  which  she  desired  to  promote.  "  Ma- 
dame," was  his  courtly  reply,  "  if  it  is  possible,  it  is  done  already. 
If  it  is  impossible,  I  will  take  care  and  manage  it."  But,  being 
very  unscrupulous  himself,  he  overshot  his  mark  when  he  sought 
to  propitiate  her  further  by  offering  to  represent  as  hers  acts  of 
charity  which  she  had  not  performed.  The  winter  of  1783  was 
one  of  unusual  severity.  The  thermometer  at  Paris  was,  for  some 
weeks,  scarcely  above  zero ;  scarcity,  with  its  inevitable  compan- 
ion, dearness  of  price,  reduced  the  poor  of  the  northern  prov- 
inces, and  especially  of  the  capital  and  its  neighborhood,  to  the 
verge  of  starvation.  The  king,  queen,  and  princesses  gave  large 
sums  from  their  privy  purses  for  their  relief ;  but  as  such  sup- 
plies were  manifestly  inadequate,  Louis  ordered  the  minister  to 
draw  three  millions  of  francs  from  the  treasury,  and  to  apply 
them  for  the  alleviation  of  the  universal  distress.  Calonne  cheer- 
fully received  and  executed  the  beneficent  command.  He  was 
perhaps  not  sorry,  at  his  first  entrance  on  his  duties,  to  show  how 
easy  it  was  for  him  to  meet  even  an  unforeseen  demand  of  so 
heavy  an  amount;  and  he  fancied  he  saw  in  it  a  means  of  ingra- 
tiating himself  with  Marie  Antoinette.  He  proposed  to  her  that 
he  should  pay  one  of  the  millions  to  her  treasurer,  that  that  offi- 
cer might  distribute  it,  in  her  name,  as  a  gift  from  her  own  al- 
lowance ;  but  Marie  Antoinette  disdained  such  unworthy  artifice. 
She  would  have  felt  ashamed  to  receive  praise  or  gratitude  to 


196  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

which  she  was  not  entitled.  She  rejected  the  proposal,  insisting 
that  the  king's  gift  should  be  attributed  to  himself  alone,  and  ex- 
pressing her  intention  to  add  to  it  by  curtailing  her  personal  ex- 
penditure, by  abridging  her  entertainments  so  long  as  the  distress 
should  last,  and  by  dedicating  the  sums  usually  appropriated  to 
pleasure  and  festivity  to  the  relief  of  those  whose  very  existence 
seemed  to  depend  on  the  aid  which  it  was  her  duty  and  that  of 
the  king  to  furnish.  For  there  was  this  especial  characteristic  in 
Marie  Antoinette's  charity,  that  it  did  not  proceed  solely  from 
kindness  of  heart  and  tenderness  of  disposition,  though  these 
were  never  wanting,  but  also  from  a  settled  principle  of  duty, 
which,  in  her  opinion,  imposed  upon  sovereigns,  as  a  primary  ob- 
ligation, the  task  of  watching  over  the  welfare  of  their  subjects 
as  persons  intrusted  by  Providence  to  their  care ;  and  such  a  feel- 
ing was  obviously  more  to  be  depended  upon  as  a  constant  mo- 
tive for  action  than  the  most  vivid  emotion  of  the  moment,  which, 
if  easily  excited,  is  not  unfrequently  as  easily  overpowered  by 
some  fresh  object. 

Meanwhile  events  were  gradually  compelling  her  to  take  a 
more  active  part  in  politics.  Maurepas  had  been  jealous  of  her 
influence,  and,  while  that  old  minister  lived,  Louis,  who  from 
his  childhood  had  been  accustomed  to  see  him  in  office,  commit- 
ted almost  every  thing  to  his  guidance.  But,  as  he  always  re- 
quired some  one  of  stronger  mind  than  himself  to  lean  upon,  as 
soon  as  Maurepas  was  gone  he  turned  to  the  queen.  It  was  to 
her  that  he  now  chiefly  confided  his  anxieties  and  perplexities ; 
from  her  that  he  sought  counsel  and  strength ;  and  the  ministers 
naturally  came  to  regard  her  as  the  real  ruler  of  the  State.  Ac- 
cordingly, we  find  from  her  correspondence  of  this  period  that 
even  such  matters  as  the  appointment  of  the  embassadors  to  for- 
eign states  were  often  referred  to  her  decision ;  and  how  greatly 
the  habit  of  considering  affairs  of  importance  expanded  her  ca- 
pacity we  may  learn  from  the  opinion  which  her  brother,  the  em- 
peror, who  was  never  disposed  to  flatter,  or  even  to  spare  her,  had 
evidently  come  to  entertain  of  her  judgment.  In  one  long  letter, 
written  in  September  of  the  year  1783,  he  discussed  with  her  the 
attitude  which  France  had  assumed  toward  Austria  ever  since  the 
dismissal  of  Choiseul ;  the  willingness  of  her  ministers  to  listen 
to  Prussian  calumnies ;  the  encouragement  which  they  had  given 
to  the  opposition  in  the  empire ;  and  their  obsequiousness  to 
Prussia;  while  Austria  had  not  retaliated,  as  she  had  had  many 


VIEWS  OF  THE  EMPEROR  JOSEPH.  197 

opportunities  of  doing,  by  any  complaisance  toward  England, 
though  the  English  statesmen  had  made  many  advances  toward 
her.  It  is  a  curious  instance  of  fears  being  realized  in  a  sense 
very  different  from  that  which  troubled  the  writer  at  the  moment, 
that  among  the  acts  of  France  of  which,  had  he  been  inclined  to 
be  captious,  he  might  justly  have  complained,  he  enumerates  her 
recent  acquisition  of  Corsica,  as  one  which,  "for  a  number  of 
reasons,  might  be  very  prejudicial  to  the  possessions  of  the  house 
of  Austria  and  its  branches  in  Italy."  It  did  indeed  prove  an 
acquisition  which  largely  influenced  the  future  history,  not  only 
of  Austria,  but  of  the  whole  world,  when  the  little  island,  which 
hitherto  had  been  but  a  hot-bed  of  disorder,  and  a  battle-field  of 
faction  burdensome  to  its  Genoese  masters,  gave  a  general  to  the 
armies  of  France  whose  most  brilliant  exploits  were  a  succession 
of  triumphs  over  the  Austrian  commanders  in  every  part  of  the 
emperor's  dominion.  His  letter  concludes  with  warnings  drawn 
from  the  present  condition  and  views  of  the  different  states  of 
Europe,  and  especially  of  France,  whose  "finances  and  resources, 
to  speak  with  moderation,  have  been  greatly  strained"  in  the  re- 
cent war ;  embracing  in  their  scope  even  the  designs  of  Russia  on 
the  independence  of  Turkey ;  and  with  a  request  that  his  sister 
would  inform  him  frankly  what  he  is  to  believe  as  to  the  opin- 
ions of  the  king;  and  in  what  light  he  is  to  regard  the  recent 
letters  of  Vergennes,  which,  to  his  apprehension,  show  an  indif- 
ference to  the  maintenance  of  the  alliance  between  the  two  coun- 
tries.* 

It  is  altogether  a  letter  such  as  might  pass  between  statesmen, 
and  proves  clearly  that  Joseph  regarded  his  sister  now  as  one 
fully  capable  of  taking  large  views  of  the  situation  of  both  coun- 
tries. And  her  answer  shows  that  she  fully  enters  into  all  the 
different  questions  which  he  has  raised,  though  it  also  shows  that 
she  is  guided  by  her  heart  as  well  as  by  her  judgment ;  still  looks 
on  the  continuance  of  the  friendship  between  her  native  and  her 
adopted  country  as  essential  not  only  to  her  comfort,  but  even  in 
some  degree  to  her  honor,  and  also  that  on  that  account  she  is  de- 
sirous at  times  of  exerting  a  greater  influence  than  is  always  allow- 
ed her. 


*  Joseph  to  Marie  Antoinette,  date  September  9th,  1783. — Marie  Antoinette, 
Joseph  II.,  and  Leopold  II.,  p.  30,  which,  to  save  such  a  lengthened  reference, 
will  hereafter  be  referred  to  as  "  Arneth." 


198  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

"  Versailles,  September  29th,  1 783. 

"  Shall  I  tell  you,  my  dear  brother,  that  your  letter  has  delighted 
me  by  its  energy  and  nobleness  of  thought  ?  and  why  should  I  not 
tell  you  so  ?  I  am  sure  that  you  will  never  confound  your  sister 
and  your  friend  with  the  tricks  and  manoeuvres  of  politicians. 

"  I  have  read  your  letter  to  the  king.  You  may  be  sure  that  it, 
like  all  your  other  letters,  shall  never  go  out  of  my  hands.  The 
king  was  struck  with  many  of  your  reflections,  and  has  even  cor- 
roborated them  himself. 

"  He  has  said  to  me  that  he  both  desired  and  hoped  always  to 
maintain  a  friendship  and  a  good  understanding  with  the  empire ; 
but  yet  that  it  was  impossible  to  answer  for  it  that  the  difference 
of  interests  might  not  at  times  lead  to  a  difference  in  the  way  of 
looking  at  and  judging  of  affairs.  This  idea  appeared  to  me  to 
come  from  himself  alone,  and  from  the  distrust  with  which  peo- 
ple have  been  inspiring  him  for  a  long  time.  For,  when  I  spoke 
to  him,  I  believe  it  to  be  certain  that  he  had  not  seen  M.  de  Ver- 
gennes  since  the  arrival  of  your  courier.  M.  de  Mercy  will  have 
reported  to  you  the  quietness  and  gentleness  with  which  this  min- 
ister has  spoken  to  him.  I  have  had  occasion  to  see  that  the  heads 
of  the  other  ministers,  which  were  a  little  heated,  have  since  cool- 
ed again.  I  trust  that  this  quiet  spirit  will  las.t,  and  in  that  case 
the  firmness  of  your  reply  ought  to  lead  to  the  rudeness  of  style 
which  the  people  here  adopted  being  forgotten.  You  know  the 
ground  and  the  characters,  so  you  can  not  be  surprised  if  the  king 
sometimes  allows  answers  to  pass  which  he  would  not  have  given 
of  his  own  accord. 

"My  health,  considering  my  present  condition,*  is  perfect.  I 
had  a  slight  accident  after  my  last  letter ;  but  it  produced  no  bad 
consequences :  it  only  made  a  little  more  care  necessary.  Accord- 
ingly I  shall  go  from  Choisy  to  Fontainebleau  by  water.  My 
children  are  quite  well.  My  boy  will  spend  his  time  at  La  Mu- 
ette  while  we  are  absent.  It  is  just  a  piece  of  stupidity  of  the 
doctors,  who  do  not  like  him  to  take  so  long  a  journey  at  his  age, 
though  he  has  two  teeth  and  is  very  strong.  I  should  be  perfect- 
ly happy  if  I  were  but  assured  of  the  general  tranquillity,  and, 
above  all,  of  the  happiness  of  my  much-loved  brother,  whom  I  love 
with  all  my  heart."f 

*  She  was  again  expecting  a  confinement ;  but,  as  had  happened  between 
the  birth  of  Madame  Royale  and  that  of  the  dauphin,  an  accident  disappoint- 
ed her  hope,  and  her  third  child  was  not  born  till  1785. 

f  Date  September  29th,  1783,  Arneth,  p.  35. 


CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  THE  EMPEROR  JOSEPH.      199 

Another  letter,  written  three  months  later,  explains  to  the  em- 
peror the  object  of  some  of  the  new  arrangements  which  Calonne 
had  introduced,  having  for  one  object,  among  others,  the  facilita- 
tion of  a  commercial  intercourse,  especially  in  tobacco,  with  the 
United  States.  She  hopes  that  another  consequence  of  them  will 
be  the  abolition  of  the  whole  system  of  farmers  -  general  of  the 
revenue ;  and  she  explains  to  him  both  the  advantages  of  such  a 
measure,  and  at  the  same  time  the  difficulties  of  carrying  it  out 
immediately  after  so  costly  a  war,  since  it  would  involve  the  in- 
stant repayment  of  large  sums  to  the  farmers,  with  all  the  clear- 
ness of  a  practiced  financier.  She  mentions  also  the  appointment 
of  the  Baron  de  Breteuil  as  the  new  minister  of  the  king's  house- 
hold,* and  her  estimate  of  his  character  is  rendered  important  by 
his  promotion,  six  years  later,  to  the  post  of  prime  minister.  The 
emperor  also  had  ample  means  of  judging  of  it  himself,  since  the 
baron  had  succeeded  the  Cardinal  de  Rohan  as  embassador  at  Vi- 
enna. "  I  think,  with  you,  that  he  requires  to  be  kept  within 
bounds  ;  and  he  will  be  so  more  than  other  ministers  by  the  nat- 
ure of  his  office,  which  is  very  limited,  and  entirely  under  the  eyes 
of  the  king  and  of  his  colleagues,  who  will  be  glad  of  any  oppor- 
tunities of  mortifying  his  vanity.  However,  his  activity  will  be 
very  useful  in  a  thousand  details  of  a  department  which  has  been 
neglected  and  badly  managed  for  the  last  sixty  years."  And 
though  it  is  a  slight  anticipation  of  the  order  of  our  narrative,  it 
will  not  be  inconvenient  to  give  here  some  extracts  from  a  third 
letter  to  the  same  brother,  written  in  the  autumn  of  the  following 
year,  in  which  she  describes  the  king's  character,  and  points  out 
the  difficulties  which  it  often  interposes  to  her  desire  of  influen- 
cing his  views  and  measures. 

It  may  perhaps  be  thought  that  she  unconsciously  underrates  her 
influence  over  her  husband,  though  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he 
was  one  of  those  men  whom  it  is  hardest  to  manage ;  wholly  with- 
out self-reliance,  yet  with  a  scrupulous  wish  to  do  right  that  made 
him  distrustful  of  others,  even  of  those  whose  advice  he  sought,  or 
whose  judgment  he  most  highly  valued. 

"September  22d,  1784. 

"  I  will  not  contradict  you,  my  dear  brother,  on  what  you  say 
about  the  short-sightedness  of  our  ministry.  I  have  long  ago 
made  some  of  the  reflections  which  you  express  in  your  letter. 

*  Ministre  de  la  maison  du  roi. 


200  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

I  have  spoken  on  the  subject  more  than  once  to  the  king ;  but 
one  must  know  him  thoroughly  to  be  able  to  judge  of  the  extent 
to  which  his  character  and  prejudices  cripple  my  resources  and 
means  of  influencing  him.  He  is  by  nature  very  taciturn ;  and 
it  often  happens  that  he  does  not  speak  to  me  about  matters  of 
importance  even  when  he  has  not  the  least  wish  to  conceal  them 
from  me.  He  answers  me  when  1  speak  to  him  about  them,  but 
he  scarcely  ever  opens  the  subject ;  and  when  I  have  learned  a 
quarter  of  the  business,  I  am  then  forced  to  use  some  address  to 
make  the  ministers  tell  me  the  rest,  by  letting  them  think  that 
the  king  has  told  me  every  thing.  When  I  reproach  him  for  not 
having  spoken  to  me  of  such  and  such  matters,  he  is  not  annoyed, 
but  only  seems  a  little  embarrassed,  and  sometimes  answers,  in  an 
off-hand  way,  that  he  had  never  thought  of  it.  This  distrust, 
which  is  natural  to  him,  was  at  first  strengthened  by  his  govern- 
or before  my  marriage.  M.  de  Vauguyon  had  alarmed  him  about 
the  authority  which  his  wife  would  desire  to  assume  over  him, 
and  the  duke's  black  disposition  delighted  in  terrifying  his  pupil 
with  all  the  phantom  stories  invented  against  the  house  of  Aus- 
tria. M.  de  Maurepas,  though  less  obstinate  and  less  malicious, 
still  thought  it  advantageous  to  his  own  credit  to  keep  up  the 
same  notions  in  the  king's  mind.  M.  de  Vergennes  follows  the 
same  plan,  and  perhaps  avails  himself  of  his  correspondence  on 
foreign  affairs  to  propagate  falsehoods.  I  have  spoken  plainly 
about  this  to  the  king  more  than  once.  He  has  sometimes  an- 
swered me  rather  peevishly,  and,  as  he  is  never  fond  of  discus- 
sion, I  have  not  been  able  to  persuade  him  that  his  minister  was 
deceived,  or  was  deceiving  him.  I  do  not  blind  myself  as  to  the 
extent  of  my  own  influence.  I  know  that  I  have  no  great  as- 
cendency over  the  king's  mind,  especially  in  politics  ;  and  would 
it  be  prudent  in  me  to  have  scenes  with  his  ministers  on  such 
subjects,  on  which  it  is  almost  certain  that  the  king  would  not 
support  me  ?  Without  ever  boasting  or  saying  a  word  that  is  not 
true,  I,  however,  let  the  public  believe  that  I  have  more  influence 
than  I  really  have,  because,  if  they  did  not  think  so,  I  should  have 
still  less.  The  avowals  which  I  am  making  to  you,  my  dear 
brother,  are  not  very  flattering  to  my  self-love  ;  but  I  do  not  like 
to  hide  any  thing  from  you,  in  order  that  you  may  be  able  to 
judge  of  my  conduct  as  correctly  as  is  possible  at  this  terrible  dis- 
tance from  you,  at  which  my  destiny  has  placed  me."* 

*  Arneth,  p.  38. 


EXTENT  OF  HER  POLITICAL  INFLUENCE.  201 

A  melancholy  interest  attaches  to  sentences  such  as  these,  from 
the  influence  which  the  defects  in  her  husband's  character,  when 
joined  to  those  of  his  minister,  had  on  the  future  destinies  of 
both,  and  of  the  nation  over  which  he  ruled.  It  was  natural  that 
she  should  explain  them  to  a  brother ;  and  though,  as  a  general 
rule,  it  is  clearly  undesirable  for  queens  consort  to  interfere  in 
politics,  it  is  clear  that  with  such  a  husband,  and  with  the  nation 
and  court  in  such  a  condition  as  then  existed  in  France,  it  was 
indispensable  that  Marie  Antoinette  should  covet,  and,  so  far  as 
she  was  able,  exert,  influence  over  the  king,  if  she  were  not  pre- 
pared to  see  him  the  victim  or  the  tool  of  caballers  and  intriguers 
who  cared  far  more  for  their  own  interests  than  for  those  of  ei- 
ther king  or  kingdom.  But  as  yet,  though,  as  we  see,  these  de- 
ficiencies of  Louis  occasionally  caused  her  annoyance,  she  had  no 
foreboding  of  evil.  Her  general  feeling  was  one  of  entire  happi- 
ness ;  her  children  were  growing  and  thriving,  her  own  health  was 
far  stronger  than  it  had  been,  and  she  entered  with  as  keen  a  rel- 
ish as  ever  into  the  excitements  and  amusements  becoming  her 
position,  and  what  we  may  still  call  her  youth,  since  she  was  even 
now  only  eight-and-twenty. 


202  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

"  The  Marriage  of  Figaro."  —  Previous  History  and  Character  of  Beaumar- 
chais. — The  Performance  of  the  Play  is  forbidden. — It  is  said  to  be  a  little 
altered. — It  is  licensed. — Displeasure  of  the  Queen. — Visit  of  Gustavus  III. 
of  Sweden. — Fete  at  the  Trianon. — Balloon  Ascent. 

IN  the  spring  of  1784,  the  court  and  capital  were  wrought  up 
to  a  high  pitch  of  excitement  by  an  incident  which  was  in  reality 
of  so  ordinary  and  trivial  a  character,  that  it  would  be  hard  to 
find  a  more  striking  proof  how  thoroughly  unhealthy  the  whole 
condition  and  feeling  of  the  nation  must  have  been,  when  such  a 
matter  could  have  been  regarded  as  important.  It  was  simply  a 
question  whether  a  play,  which  had  been  recently  accepted  by  the 
manager  of  the  principal  theatre  in  Paris,  should  receive  the  li- 
cense from  the  theatrical  censor  which  was  necessary  to  its  being 
performed. 

The  play  was  entitled  "  The  Marriage  of  Figaro."  The  history 
of  the  author,  M.  Beaumarchais,  is  curious,  as  that  of  a  rare  speci- 
men of  the  literary  adventurer  of  his  time.  He  was  born  in  the 
year  1732.  His  father  was  a  watch-maker  named  Caron,  and  he 
himself  followed  that  trade  till  he  was  three  or  four  and  twenty, 
and  attained  considerable  skill  in  it.  But  he  was  ambitious.  He 
was  conscious  of  a  handsome  face  and  figure,  and  knew  their  value 
in  such  a  court  as  that  of  Louis  XV.  He  gave  up  his  trade  as 
a  watch-maker,  and  bought  successively  different  places  about  the 
court,  the  last  of  which  was  sold  at  a  price  sufficient  to  entitle 
him  to  claim  gentility ;  so  that,  in  one  of  his  subsequent  railings 
against  the  nobles,  he  declared  that  his  nobility  was  more  incon- 
testable than  that  of  most  of  the  body,  since  he  could  produce 
the  stamped  receipt  for  it.  Following  the  example  of  Moliere 
and  Voltaire,  he  changed  his  name,  and  called  himself  Beaumar- 
chais. He  married  two  rich  widows.  He  formed  a  connection 
with  the  celebrated  financier,  Paris  Duverney,  who  initiated  him 
in  the  mysteries  of  stock-jobbing.  Being  a  good  musician,  he  ob- 
tained the  protection  of  the  king's  daughters,  taught  them  the 
harp,  and  conducted  the  weekly  concerts  which,  during  the  life  of 


CAREER   OF  BEAUMARCHAIS.  203 

Marie  Leczinska,  they  gave  to  the  king  and  the  royal  family.  He 
wrote  two  or  three  plays,  none  of  which  had  any  great  success, 
while  one  was  a  decided  failure.  He  became  involved  in  law- 
suits, one  of  which  he  conducted  himself  against  the  best  ability 
of  the  Parisian  bar,  and  displayed  such  wit  and  readiness  that 
he  not  only  gained  his  cause,  but  established  a  notoriety  which 
throughout  life  was  apparently  his  dearest  object.  He  crossed 
over  to  England,  where  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Wilkes,  and 
one  or  two  agents  of  the  American  colonies,  then  just  commencing 
their  insurrection ;  and,  partly  from  political  sympathy  with  their 
views  of  freedom,  partly,  as  he  declared,  to  retaliate  on  England 
for  the  injuries  which  France  had  suffered  at  her  hands  in  the 
Seven  Years'  War,  he  became  a  political  agent  himself,  procuring 
arms  and  ships  to  be  sent  across  the  Atlantic,  and  also  a  great 
quantity  of  stores  of  a  more  peaceful  character,  out  of  which  he 
had  hoped  to  make  a  handsome  profit.  But  the  Americans  gave 
him  credit  for  greater  disinterestedness ;  the  President  of  Con- 
gress wrote  him  a  letter  thanking  him  for  his  zeal,  but  refused  to 
pay  for  his  stores,  for  which  he  demanded  nearly  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  francs.  He  commenced  an  action  for  the  money 
in  the  American  courts,  but,  as  he  could  not  conduct  it  himself, 
he  did  not  obtain  an  early  decision ;  indeed,  the  matter  imbit- 
tered  all  his  closing  days,  and  was  not  settled  when  he  died. 

But  while  he  was  in  the  full  flush  of  self-congratulation  at  the 
degree  in  which,  as  he  flattered  himself,  he  had  contributed  to  the 
downfall  of  England,  the  exuberance  of  his  spirits  prompted  him 
to  try  his  hand  at  a  fourth  play,  a  sort  of  sequel  to  one  of  his 
earlier  performances  —  "The  Barber  of  Seville."  He  finished  it 
about  the  end  of  the  year  1781,  and,  as  the  manager  of  the  theatre 
was  willing  to  act  it,  he  at  once  applied  for  the  necessary  license. 
But  it  had  already  been  talked  about:  if  one  party  had  pro- 
nounced it  lively,  witty,  and  the  cleverest  play  that  had  been  seen 
since  the  death  of  Moliere,  another  set  of  readers  declared  it  full 
of  immoral  and  dangerous  satire  on  the  institutions  of  the  coun- 
try. It  is  almost  inseparable  from  the  very  nature  of  comedy 
that  it  should  be  to  some  extent  satirical.  The  offense  which 
those  who  complained  of  "  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  "  on  that  ac- 
count really  found  in  it  was,  that  it  satirized  classes  and  institu- 
tions which  could  not  bear  such  attacks,  and  had  not  been  used  to 
them.  Moliere  had  ridiculed  the  lower  middle  class;  the  newly 
rich ;  the  tradesman  who,  because  he  had  made  a  fortune,  thought 


204  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

himself  a  gentleman  ;  but,  as  one  whose  father  was  in  the  employ 
of  royalty,  he  laid  no  hand  on  any  pillar  of  the  throne.  But 
Beaumarchais,  in  "  The  Marriage  of  Figaro,"  singled  out  especially 
what  were  called  the  privileged  classes ;  he  attacked  the  licentious- 
ness of  the  nobles ;  the  pretentious  imbecility  of  ministers  and 
diplomatists ;  the  cruel  injustice  of  wanton  arrests  and  imprison- 
ments of  protracted  severity  against  which  there  was  no  appeal 
nor  remedy  ;  and  the  privileged  classes  in  consequence  denounced 
his  work,  and  their  complaints  of  its  character  and  tendency  made 
such  an  impression  that  the  court  resolved  that  the  license  should 
not  be  granted. 

The  refusal,  however,  was  not  at  first  pronounced  in  a  straight- 
forward way ;  but  was  deferred,  as  if  those  who  had  resolved  on 
it  feared  to  pronounce  it.  For  a  long  time  the  censor  gave  no  re- 
ply at  all,  till  Beaumarchais  complained  of  the  delay  as  more  in- 
jurious to  him  than  a  direct  denial.  When  at  last  his  application 
was  formally  rejected,.-he  induced  his  friends  to  raise  such  a  clam- 
or in  his  favor,  that  Louis  determined  to  judge  for  himself,  and 
caused  Madame  de  Campan  to  read  it  to  himself  and  the  queen. 
He  fully  agreed  with  the  censor.  Many  passages  he  pronounced 
to  be  in  extremely  bad  taste.  When  the  reader  came  to  the  al- 
lusions to  secret  arrests,  protracted  imprisonments,  and  the  tedious 
formalities  of  the  law  and  lawyers,  he  declared  that  it  would  be 
necessary  to  pull  down  the  Bastile  before  it  could  be  acted  with 
safety,  as  Beaumarchais  was  ridiculing  every  thing  which  ought 
to  be  respected.  "  It  is  not  to  be  performed,  then  ?"  said  the 
queen.  "  No,"  replied  the  king,  "  you  may  depend  upon  that." 

Similar  refusals  of  a  license  had  been  common  enough,  so  that 
there  was  no  reason  in  the  world  why  this  decision  should  have 
attracted  any  notice  whatever.  But  Beaumarchais  was  the  fash- 
ion. He  had  influential  patrons  even  in  the  palace:  the  Count 
d'Artois  and  Madame  de  Polignac,  with  the  c6terie  which  met  in 
her  apartments,  being  among  them ;  and  the  mere  idea  that  the 
court  or  the  Government  was  afraid  to  let  the  play  be  acted 
caused  thousands  to  desire  to  see  it,  who,  without  such  a  tempta- 
tion, would  have  been  wholly  indifferent  to  its  fate.  The  censor 
could  not  prevent  its  being  read  at  private  parties,  and  such  read- 
ings became  so  popular  that,  in  1782,  one  was  got  up  for  the 
amusement  of  the  Russian  prince,  who  was  greatly  pleased  by 
the  liveliness  of  the  dramatic  situations,  and,  probably,  not  suf- 
ficiently aware  of  the  prevalence  of  discontent  in  many  circles  of 


THE  PLAY  IS  LICENSED.  205 

French  society  to  sympathize  with  those  who  saw  danger  in  its 
satire. 

The  praises  lavished  on  it  gave  the  author  greater  boldness, 
which  was  quite  unnecessary.  He  even  meditated  an  evasion  of 
the  law  by  getting  it  acted  in  a  place  which  was  not  a  theatre, 
and  tickets  were  actually  issued  for  the  performance  in  a  saloon 
which  was  often  used  for  rehearsals,  when  a  royal  warrant*  per- 
emptorily forbidding  such  a  proceeding  was  sent  down  from  the 
palace.  A  clamor  was  at  once  raised  by  the  friends  of  Beaumar- 
chais,  as  if  "  sealed  letters  "  had  never  been  issued  before.  They 
talked  in  a  loud  voice  of  "  oppression  "  and  "  tyranny ;"  and  any 
one  who  knew  the  king's  disposition  might  have  divined  that 
such  an  act  of  vigor  was  sure  to  be  followed  by  one  of  weakness. 
Presently  Beaumarchais  changed  his  tone.  He  gave  out  that  he 
had  retrenched  the  passages  which  had  excited  the  royal  disap- 
proval, and  requested  that  the  play  might  be  re-examined.  A  new 
censor  of  high  literary  reputation  reported  to  the  head  of  the  po- 
licef  that  if  one  or  two  passages  were  corrected,  and  one  or  two 
expressions,  which  were  liable  to  be  misinterpreted,  were  suppress- 
ed, he  foresaw  no  danger  in  allowing  the  representation.  Beau- 
marchais at  once  promised  to  make  the  required  corrections,  and 
one  of  Madame  de  Polignac's  friends,  the  Count  de  Vaudreuil, 
the  very  nobleman  with  whom  that  lady's  name  was  by  many 
discreditably  connected,  obtained  the  king's  leave  to  perform  it 
at  his  country  house,  that  thus  an  opportunity  might  be  afforded 
for  judging  whether  or  not  the  alterations  which  had  been  made 
were  sufficient  to  render  its  performance  innocent. 

The  king  was  assured  that  the  passages  which  he  had  regarded 
as  mischievous  were  suppressed  or  divested  of  their  sting.  Marie 
Antoinette  apparently  had  her  suspicions ;  but  Louis  could  never 
long  withstand  repeated  solicitations,  and,  as  he  had  not,  when 
Madame  de  Campan  read  it,  formed  any  very  high  opinion  of  its 
literary  merits,  he  thought  that,  now  that  it  was  deprived  of  its 
venom,  it  would  be  looked  upon  as  heavy,  and  would  fail  accord- 

*  "  Le  roi  signa  une  lettre  de  cachet  qui  defendait  cette  representation. " — 
MADAME  DE  CAMPAN,  ch.  xi. ;  see  the  whole  chapter.  Madame  de  Campan's  ac- 
count of  the  queen's  inclinations  on  the  subject  differs  from  that  given  by 
M.  de  Lomenie,  in  his  "  Beaumarchais  et  son  Temps,"  but  seems  more  to  be 
relied  on,  as  she  had  certainly  better  means  of  information. 

f  See  M.  Gaillard's  report  to  the  lieutenant  of  police.  —  Beaumarchais  et 
son  Temps,  ii.,  p.  313. 


206  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

ingly.  Some  good  judges,  such  as  the  Marquis  de  Montesquieu, 
were  of  the  same  opinion.  The  actors  thought  differently.  "  It 
is  my  belief,"  said  a  man  of  fashion  to  the  witty  Mademoiselle 
Arnould,  using  the  technical  language  of  the  theatre,  "  that 
your  play  will  be  '  damned.'  "  "  Yes,"  she  replied,  "  it  will,  fifty 
nights  running."  But,  even  if  Louis  had  heard  of  her  prophecy, 
he  would  have  disregarded  it.  He  gave  his  permission  for  the 
performance  to  take  place,  and  on  the  27th  April,  1784,  "The 
Marriage  of  Figaro "  was  accordingly  acted  to  an  audience 
which  filled  the  house  to  the  very  ceiling;  and  which  the  long 
uncertainty  as  to  whether  it  would  ever  be  seen  or  not  had  dis- 
posed to  applaud  every  scene  and  every  repartee,  and  even  to  see 
wit  where  none  existed.  To  an  impartial  critic,  removed  both  by 
time  and  country  from  the  agitation  which  had  taken  place,  it 
will  probably  seem  that  the  play  thus  obtained  a  reception  far 
beyond  its  merits.  It  was  undoubtedly  what  managers  would 
call  a  good  acting  play.  Its  plot  was  complicated  without  being 
confused.  It  contained  many  striking  situations;  the  dialogue 
was  lively,  but  there  was  more  humor  in  the  surprises  and  discov- 
eries than  verbal  wit  in  the  repartees.  Some  strokes  of  satire 
were  leveled  at  the  grasping  disposition  of  the  existing  race  of 
courtiers,  whose  whole  trade  was  represented  as  consisting  of  get- 
ting all  they  could,  and  asking  for  more ;  and  others  at  the  tricks 
of  modern  politicians,  feigning  to  be  ignorant  of  what  they  knew ; 
to  know  what  they  were  ignorant  of ;  to  keep  secrets  which  had 
no  existence  ;  to  lock  the  door  to  mend  a  pen ;  to  appear  deep 
when  they  were  shallow ;  to  set  spies  in  motion,  and  to  intercept 
letters  ;  to  try  to  ennoble  the  poverty  of  their  means  by  the  grand- 
eur of  their  objects.  The  censorship,  of  course,  did  not  escape. 
The  scene  being  laid  in  Spain,  Figaro  affirmed  that  at  Madrid  the 
liberty  of  the  press  meant  that,  so  long  as  an  author  spoke  nei- 
ther of  authority,  nor  of  public  worship,  nor  of  politics,  nor  of  mo- 
rality, nor  of  men  in  power,  nor  of  the  opera,  nor  of  any  other 
exhibition,  nor  of  any  one  who  was  concerned  in  any  thing,  he 
might  print  what  he  pleased.  The  lawyers  were  reproached  with 
a  scrupulous  adherence  to  forms,  and  a  connivance  at  needless 
delays,  which  put  money  into  their  pockets ;  and  the  nobles,  with 
thinking  that,  as  long  as  they  gave  themselves  the  trouble  to  be 
born,  society  had  no  right  to  expect  from  them  any  further  use- 
ful action.  But  such  satire  was  too  general,  it  might  have  been 
thought,  to  cause  uneasiness,  much  more  to  do  specific  injury  to 


GUSTAVUS  IH.  OF  SWEDEN.  207 

any  particular  individual,  or  to  any  company  or  profession.  Fi- 
garo himself  is  represented  as  saying  that  none  but  little  men 
feared  little  writings.*  And  one  of  the  advisers  whom  King 
Louis  consulted  as  to  the  possibility  of  any  mischief  arising  from 
the  performance  of  the  play,  is  said  to  have  expressed  his  opin- 
ion in  the  form  of  an  apothegm,  that  "  none  but  dead  men  were 
killed  by  jests."  The  author  might  even  have  argued  that  his 
keenest  satire  had  been  poured  upon  those  national  enemies,  the 
English,  when  he  declared  what  has  been  sometimes  regarded  as 
the  national  oath  to  be  the  pith  and  marrow  of  the  English  lan- 
guage, the  open  sesame  to  English  society,  the  key  to  unlock 
the  English  heart,  and  to  obtain  the  judicious  swearer  all  that  he 
could  desire,  f 

And  an  English  writer,  with  English  notions  of  the  liberty  of 
the  press,  would  hardly  have  thought  it  worth  while  to  notice  such 
an  affair  at  all,  did  he  not  feel  bound  to  submit  his  judgment  to 
that  of  the  French  themselves.  And  if  their  view  be  correct,  al- 
most every  institution  in  France  must  have  been  a  dead  man  past 
all  hopes  of  recovery,  since  the  French  historical  writers,  to  what- 
ever party  they  belong,  are  unanimous  in  declaring  that  it  was 
from  this  play  that  many  of  the  oldest  institutions  in  the  country 
received  their  death-blow,  and  that  Beaumarchais  was  at  once  the 
herald  and  the  pioneer  of  the  approaching  Revolution. 

Paris  had  scarcely  cooled  down  after  this  excitement,  when  its 
attention  was  more  agreeably  attracted  by  the  arrival  of  a  king, 
Gustavus  III.  of  Sweden.  He  had  paid  a  visit  to  France  in  1771, 
which  had  been  cut  short  by  the  sudden  death  of  his  father,  ne- 
cessitating his  immediate  return  to  his  own  country  to  take  pos- 
session of  his  throne ;  but  the  brief  acquaintance  which  Marie  An- 
toinette had  then  made  with  him  had  inspired  her  with  a  great 
admiration  of  his  chivalrous  character ;  and  in  the  preceding  year, 
hearing  that  he  was  contemplating  a  tour  in  Southern  Europe,  she 
had  written  to  him  to  express  a  hope  that  he  would  repeat  his 
visit  to  Versailles,  promising  him  "  such  a  reception  as  was  due  to 

*  "  H  n'y  a  que  lea  petite  homines  qui  redoutent  les  petits  Merits." — Act  v., 
scene  3. 

f  "  Avec  Goddam  en,  Angleterre  on  ne  manque  de  rien  nulle  part.  Voulez- 

vous  tater  un  bon  poulet  gras Goddam Aimez-vous  a  boire  un  coup 

d'excellent  Bourgogne  ou  de  clairet?  rien  que  celui-ci  Goddam.  Les  Anglais 
;'i  la  verit6  ajoutent  par-ci  par-la  autres  mots  en  conversant,  mais  il  est  bien 
ais6  de  voir  que  Goddam  est  le  fond  de  la  langue." — Act  iiL,  scene  5. 


208  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

an  ancient  ally  of  France  ;"*  and  adding  that  "  she  should  person- 
ally have  great  pleasure  in  testifying  to  him  how  greatly  she  val- 
ued his  friendship." 

Her  mention  of  the  ancient  alliance  between  the  two  countries, 
which,  indeed,  had  subsisted  ever  since  the  days  of  Francis  L,  was 
very  welcome  to  Gustavus,  since  the  object  of  his  journey  was 
purely  political,  and  he  desired  to  negotiate  a  fresh  treaty.  But 
those  matters  he,  of  course,  arranged  with  the  ministers.  The 
queen  was  only  concerned  in  the  entertainments  due  from  royal 
hosts  to  so  distinguished  a  guest.  Most  of  them  were  of  the  or- 
dinary character,  there  being  a  sort  of  established  routine  of  fes- 
tivity for  such  occasions.  And  it  may  be  taken  as  a  proof  that 
the  court  had  abated  somewhat  of  its  alarm  at  Beaumarchais's 
play  that  "  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  "  was  allowed  to  be  acted  on 
one  of  the  king's  visits  to  the  theatre.  She  also  gave  him  an  en- 
tertainment of  more  than  usual  splendor  at  the  Trianon,  at  which 
all  the  ladies  present,  and  the  invitations  were  very  numerous, 
were  required  to  be  dressed  in  white,  while  all  the  walks  and 
shrubberies  of  the  garden  were  illuminated,  so  that  the  whole 
scene  presented  a  spectacle  which  he  described  in  one  of  his  let- 
ters as  "a  complete  fairy-land;  a  sight  worthy  of  the  Elysian 
Fields  themselves."f  But,  as  usual,  the  queen  herself  was  the 
chief  ornament  of  the  whole,  as  she  moved  graciously  among  her 
guests,  laying  aside  the  character  of  queen  to  assume  that  of  the 
cordial  hostess ;  and  not  even  taking  her  place  at  the  banquet, 
but  devoting  herself  wholly  to  the  pleasurable  duty  of  doing  hon- 
or to  her  guests. 

One  of  the  displays  was  of  a  novel  character,  from  which  its 
inventors  and  patrons  expected  scientific  results  of  importance, 
which,  though  nearly  a  century  has  since  elapsed,  have  not  yet 
been  realized.  In  the  preceding  year,  Montgolfier  had  for  the 
first  time  sent  up  a  balloon,  and  the  new  invention  was  now  exhib- 
ited in  the  Court  of  Versailles :  the  queen  allowed  the  balloon  to 
be  called  by  her  name ;  and,  to  the  great  admiration  of  Gustavus, 
who  had  a  decided  taste  for  matters  which  were  in  any  way  con- 
nected with'  practical  science,  the  "  Marie  Antoinette  "  made  a  suc- 
cessful voyage  to  Chantilly.  The  date  of  another  invention,  if, 
indeed,  it  deserves  so  respectable  a  title,  is  also  fixed  by  this  roy- 
al visit.  Mesmer  had  recently  begun  to  astonish  or  bewilder  the 

*  "  Gustave  III.  et  la  Cour  de  France,"  ii.,  p.  22.  f  Ibid.,  p.  35. 


MUTUAL  ESTEEM  CREATED. 


209 


Parisians  with  his  theory  of  animal  magnetism ;  and  Gustavus 
spent  some  time  in  discussing  the  question  with  him,  and  seems 
for  a  moment  to  have  flattered  himself  that  he  comprehended  his 
principles.  But  the  only  durable  result  which  arose  from  his  stay 
in  France  was  the  sincere  regard  and  esteem  which  he  and  the 
queen  mutually  conceived  for  each  other.  They  established  a  cor- 
respondence, in  which  Marie  Antoinette  repeatedly  showed  her 
eagerness  to  gratify  his  wishes  and  to  attend  to  his  recommenda- 
tions ;  and  when,  at  a  later  period,  unexpected  troubles  fell  on  her 
and  her  husband,  there  was  no  one  whom  their  troubles  inspired 
with  greater  eagerness  to  serve  them  than  Gustavus,  whose  last 
projects,  before  he  fell  by  the  hand  of  an  assassin,  were  directed  to 
their  deliverance  from  the  dangers  which,  though  neither  he  nor 
they  were  as  yet  fully  alive  to  their  magnitude,  were  on  the  point 
of  overwhelming  them. 

14 


210  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

St.  Cloud  is  purchased  for  the  Queen. — Libelous  Attacks  on  her. — Birth  of 
the  Due  de  Normandie. — Joseph  presses  her  to  make  France  support  his 
Views  in  the  Low  Countries. — The  Affair  of  the  Necklace. — Share  which  the 
Cardinal  de  Rohan  had  in  it. — The  Queen's  Indignation  at  his  Acquittal. — 
Subsequent  Career  of  the  Cardinal. 

MARIE  ANTOINETTE  had  long  since  completed  her  gardens  at 
the  Trianon,  but  the  gradual  change  in  the  arrangements  of  the 
court  had  made  a  number  of  alterations  requisite  at  Versailles, 
with  which  the  difficulty  of  finding  money  rendered  it  desirable 
to  proceed  slowly.  It  was  reckoned  that  it  would  be  necessary  to 
give  up  the  greater  part  of  the  palace  to  workmen  for  ten  years ; 
and  as  the  other  palaces  which  the  king  possessed  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Paris  were  hardly  suited  for  the  permanent  residence  of 
the  court,  the  queen  proposed  to  her  husband  to  obtain  St.  Cloud 
from  the  Due  d'Orleans,  giving  him  in  exchange  La  Muette,  the 
Castle  of  Choisy,  and  a  small  adjacent  forest.  Such  an  arrange- 
ment would  have  produced  a  considerable  saving  by  the  reduction 
of  the  establishments  kept  up  at  those  places,  at  which  the  court 
only  spent  a  few  days  in  each  year.  And  as  the  duke  was  dis- 
posed to  think  that  he  should  be  a  gainer  by  the  exchange,  it  is 
not  very  easy  to  explain  how  it  was  that  the  original  project  was 
given  up,  and  that  St.  Cloud  was  eventually  sold  to  the  crown  for 
a  sum  of  money,  Choisy  and  La  Muette  being  also  retained. 

St.  Cloud  was  bought ;  and  Marie  Antoinette,  still  eager  to  pre- 
vent her  own  acquisition  from  being  too  costly,  proposed  to  the 
king  that  it  should  be  bought  in  her  name,  and  called  her  proper- 
ty ;  since  an  establishment  for  her  would  naturally  be  framed  on 
a  more  moderate  scale  than  that  of  any  palace  belonging  to  the 
king,  which  was  held  always  to  require  the  appointment  of  a  gov- 
ernor and  deputy-governors,  with  a  corresponding  staff  of  under- 
lings, while  she  should  only  require  a  porter  at  the  outer  gate. 
The  advantage  of  such  a  plan  was  so  obvious  that  it  was  at  once 
adopted.  The  porters  and  servants  wore  the  queen's  livery ;  and 
all  notices  of  the  regulations  to  be  observed  were  signed  "  In  the 


LIBEL 0 US  ATTACKS  ON  HER.  211 

queen's  name."*  Yet  so  busy  were  her  enemies  at  this  time,  that 
even  this  simple  arrangement,  devised  solely  for  the  benefit  of  the 
people  who  were  intimately  concerned  in  every  thing  that  tended 
to  diminish  the  royal  expenditure,  gave  rise  to  numberless  cavils. 
Some  affirmed  that  the  issue  of  such  notices  in  the  name  of  the 
queen  instead  of  in  that  of  the  king  was  an  infringement  on  his 
authority.  One  most  able  and  influential  counselor  of  the  Parlia- 
ment, Duval  d'Espremesnil,  who  in  more  than  one  discussion  in 
subsequent  years  showed  that  in  general  he  fully  appreciated  the 
principles  of  constitutional  government,  but  who  at  this  time  seems 
to  have  been  animated  by  no  other  feeling  than  that  of  hatred  for 
the  existing  ministers,  even  went  the  length  of  affirming  that  there 
was  "  something  not  only  impolitic  but  immoral  in  the  idea  of 
any  palace  belonging  to  a  queen  of  France."f  But  when  the  ar- 
rangements had  once  been  made,  Marie  Antoinette  not  unnatural- 
ly thought  her  honor  concerned  in  not  abandoning  it  in  deference 
to  clamor  so  absurd,  as  well  as  so  disrespectful  to  herself;  and 
St.  Cloud,  to  which  she  had  always  been  partial,  continued  hers, 
and  for  the  next  five  years  divided  her  attention  with  the  Tri- 
anon. 

But  though  she  herself  disregarded  all  such  attacks  with  the 
calm  dignity  which  belonged  to  her  character,  her  friends  were 
not  free  from  serious  apprehensions  as  to  the  power  of  persistent 
detraction  and  calumny.  It  was  one  of  the  penalties  which  the 
nation  had  to  pay  for  the  infamies  which  had  stained  the  crown 
during  the  last  three  centuries,  that  the  people  had  learned  to  think 
that  nothing  was  too  bad  to  say  and  to  believe  of  their  kings ;  and 
Marie  Antoinette  seemed  as  yet  a  fairer  mark  than  usual  for  slan- 
derous attack,  because  her  position  was  weaker  than  that  of  a 
king.J  It  depended  on  the  life  of  her  husband  and  of  a  single 
son,  who  was  already  beginning  to  show  signs  of  weakness  of  con- 
stitution. It  was  therefore  with  exceeding  satisfaction  that  in  the 
autumn  of  1784  her  friends  learned  that  she  was,  again  about  to 
become  a  mother.  They  prayed  with  inexpressible  anxiety  that 

*  "  De  par  la  reine."  f  Madame  de  >Campan,  ch.  xi. 

\  " '  La  Iegeret6  a  tout  croire  et  a  tout  dire  des  souverains,'  ecrit  tr£s  juste- 
ment  M.  Nisard  (Moniteur  du  22  Janvier,  1866),  'est  un  des  travers  de  notre 
pays,  et  comme  le  defaut  de  notre  qualitS  de  nation  monarchique.  (Test  ce 
travers  qui  a  tue  Marie  Antoinette  par  la  main  des  furieux  qui  eurent  peut- 
£tre  d6shonn£tes  gens  pour  complices.  Sa  mort  devait  rendre  a  jamais  im- 
possible en  France  la  calomnie  politique.' " — CHAMBRIER,  i.,  p.  494. 


212  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

the  expected  child  should  prove  a  son ;  and  on  the  27th  of  March, 
1785,  their  prayers  were  granted.  A  son  was  born,  whom  his  de- 
lighted father  at  once  took  in  his  arms,  calling  him  "  his  little  Nor- 
man," and,  saying  "  that  the  name  alone  would  bring  him  happi- 
ness," created  Duke  of  Normandy.  No  prophecy  was  ever  so  sad- 
ly falsified ;  no  king's  son  had  ever  so  miserable  a  lot ;  but  no  fore- 
bodings of  evil  as  yet  disturbed  his  parents.  Their  delight  was 
fully  shared  by  the  body  of  the  people ;  for  the  cabals  against  the 
queen  were  as  yet  confined  to  the  immediate  precincts  of  the  court, 
and  had  not  descended  to  infect  the  middle  classes.  It  was  with 
difficulty  when,  after  her  confinement,  she  paid  her  visit  to  Paris 
to  return  thanks  at  Notre  Dame  and  St.  Genevieve,  that  the  citi- 
zens could  be  prevented  from  unharnessing  her  horses  and  drag- 
ging her  coach  in  triumph  through  the  streets.*  And  their  ex- 
ultation was  fully  shared  by  the  better -intentioned  class  of  court- 
iers, and  by  all  Marie  Antoinette's  real  friends,  who  felt  assured 
that  the  birth  of  this  second  son  had  given  her  the  security  which 
had  hitherto  been  wanting  to  her  position. 

Meanwhile,  she  was  again  led  to  interest  herself  greatly  in  for- 
eign politics,  though  in  truth  she  hardly  regarded  any  thing  in 
which  her  brother's  empire  was  interested  as  foreign,  so  deep  was 
her  conviction  that  the  interests  of  France  and  Austria  were  iden- 
tical and  inseparable,  and  so  unwearied  were  her  endeavors  to 
make  her  husband's  ministers  see  all  questions  that  concerned  her 
brother's  dominions  with  her  eyes.  Throughout  the  latter  part 
of  1784,  and  the  earlier  months  of  1785,  Joseph,  who  was  always 
restless  in  his  ambition,  was  full  of  schemes  of  aggrandizement 
which  he  desired  to  carry  out  through  the  favor  and  co-operation 
of  France.  At  one  moment  he  projected  obtaining  Bavaria  in 
exchange  for  the  Netherlands,  at  another  he  aimed  at  procuring 
the  opening  of  the  Scheldt  by  threatening  the  Dutch  with  instant 
war  if  they  resisted.  But,  as  all  these  schemes  were  eventually 
abandoned,  they  would  hardly  require  to  be  mentioned  here,  were 
it  not  for  the  proofs  which  his  correspondence  with  his  sister  af- 
fords of  his  increasing  esteem  for  her  capacity,  and  his  evident 
conviction  of  her  growing  influence  in  the  French  Government, 
and  for  the  light  which  some  of  her  answers  to  his  letters  throw 
on  her  relations  with  the  ministers,  which  had  perhaps  some  share 
in  increasing  the  annoyance  that  the  affair  of  "  the  necklace,"  as 

*  "  M£moires  de  la  Reine  de  France,"  par  M.  Lafont  d'Aussonne,  p.  42. 


SCHEMES  OF  THE  EMPEROR.  213 

will  be  presently  mentioned,  caused  her  before  the  end  of  the 
year.  Her  difficulties  with  Louis  himself  were  the  same  as  she 
had  already  described  to  her  brother  on  former  occasions.  "  It 
was  impossible  to  induce  him  to  take  a  strong  line,  so  as  to  speak 
resolutely  to  M.  de  Vergennes  in  her  presence,  and  equally  so  to 
prevent  his  changing  his  mind  afterward  ;"*  while  she  distrusted 
the  good  faith  of  the  minister  so  much  that,  though  she  resolved 
to  speak  to  him  strongly  on  the  subject,  she  would  not  do  so  till 
she  could  discuss  the  question  with  him  "  in  the  presence  of  the 
king,  that  he  might  not  be  able  to  disfigure  or  to  exaggerate  what 
she  said."  Yet  she  did  not  always  find  her  precautions  effectual. 
Louis's  judgment  was  always  at  the  mercy  of  the  last  speaker. 
She  assured  her  brother  that  "  he  had  abundant  reason  to  be  con- 
tented with  the  king's  personal  feelings  on  the  subject.  When 
he  received  the  emperor's  letter,  he  spoke  to  her  about  it  in  a  way 
that  delighted  her.  He  regarded  Joseph's  demands  as  just,  and 
his  motives  as  most  reasonable.  Yet — she  blushed  to  own  it  even 
to  her  brother — after  he  had  seen  his  minister,  his  tone  was  no 
longer  the  same ;  he  was  embarrassed ;  he  shunned  the  subject 
with  her,  and  often  found  some  new  objection  to  weaken  the  ef- 
fect of  his  previous  admissions." 

At  one  time  she  even  feared  a  rupture  between  the  two  coun- 
tries. Vergennes  was  urging  the  king  to  send  an  army  of  ob- 
servation to  the  frontier;  and,  if  it  were  sent,  the  proximity  of 
such  a  force  to  the  Austrian  troops  in  the  Netherlands  would,  to 
her  apprehension,  be  full  of  danger.  There  was  sound  political 
acuteness  in  her  remark  that  the  dispatch  of  an  army  of  observa- 
tion was  not  "  in  itself  a  declaration  of  war,  but  that  when  two 
armies  are  so  near  to  one  another  an  order  to  advance  is  very 
soon  executed;"  and,  with  a  shrewd  perception  of  the  argument 
which  was  most  likely  to  influence  the  humane  disposition  of  her 
husband,  she  pressed  upon  him  that  "  the  delays  and  shuffling  of 
his  ministers  might  very  probably  involve  him  in  war,  in  spite  of 
his  own  intentions."  However,  eventually  the  clouds  which  had 
caused  her  anxiety  were  dissipated ;  the  mediation  of  France  had 
even  some  share  in  leading  to  a  conclusion  of  these  disputes  in  a 
manner  in  which  Joseph  himself  acquiesced;  and  the  good  un- 
derstanding between  the  two  crowns,  on  which,  as  Marie  Antoi- 

*  See  her  letters  to  Mercy,  December  26th,  1784,  and  to  the  emperor,  De- 
cember 3 1st,  1784,  and  February  4th,  1785,  Arneth,  p.  64,  et  seq. 


214  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

nette  often  declared,  her  happiness  greatly  depended,  was  pre- 
served, or,  as  she  hoped,  even  strengthened,  by  the  result  of  these 
negotiations. 

But  on  one  occasion  of  real  moment  to  the  personal  comfort 
and  credit  of  the  queen,  Louis  behaved  with  a  clear  good  sense, 
and,  what  was  equally  important,  with  a  firmness  which  she  grate- 
fully acknowledged,*  and  contrasted  remarkably  with  the  pusil- 
lanimous advice  that  had  been  given  by  more  than  one  of  the  min- 
isters. That  the  affair  in  which  he  exhibited  these  qualities  should 
for  a  moment  have  been  regarded  as  one  of  political  importance, 
is  another  testimony  to  the  diseased  state  of  the  public  mind  at 
the  time ;  and  that  it  should  have  been  possible  so  to  use  it  as 
to  attach  the  slightest  degree  of  discredit  to  the  queen,  is  a  proof 
as  strange  as  melancholy  how  greatly  the  secret  intrigues  of  the 
basest  cabal  that  ever  disgraced  a  court  had  succeeded  in  under- 
mining her  reputation,  and  poisoning  the  very  hearts  of  the  peo- 
ple against  her.f 

Boehmer,  the  court  jeweler,  had  collected  a  large  number  of 
diamonds  of  unusual  size  and  brilliancy,  which  he  had  formed 
into  a  necklace,  in  the  hope  of  selling  it  to  the  queen,  whose  fancy 
for  such  jewels  had  some  years  before  been  very  great.  She  had 
at  one  time  spent  sums  on  diamond  ornaments,  large  enough  to 
provoke  warm  remonstrances  from  her  mother,  though  certainly 
not  excessive  for  her  rank ;  and  Louis,  knowing  her  partiality 
for  them,  had  more  than  once  made  her  costly  gifts  of  the  kind. 
But  her  taste  for  them  had  cooled ;  her  children  now  engrossed 
far  more  of  her  attention  than  her  dress,  and  she  was  keenly  alive 
to  the  distress  which-  still  prevailed  in  many  parts  of  the  king- 
dom, and  to  the  embarrassments  of  the  revenue,  which  the  inge- 
nuity of  Calonne  did  not  relieve  half  so  rapidly  as  his  rashness 
encumbered  it.  Accordingly,  her  reply  to  Boehmer's  application 
that  she  would  purchase  his  necklace  was  that  her  jewel-case  was 
sufficiently  full,  and  that  she  had  almost  given  up  wearing  dia- 
monds ;  and  that  if  such  a  sum  as  he  asked,  which  was  nearly 
seventy  thousand  pounds,  were  available,  she  should  greatly  prefer 

*  "  J'ai  6 16  re"ellement  touched  de  la  raison  et  de  la  fermet6  que  le  roi  a 
mises  dans  cette  rude  stance." — Marie  Antoinette  to  Joseph  1L,  August  22d, 
1785,  Arneth,  p.  93. 

f  "La  calomnie  s'est  attachee  it  poursuivre  la  remc,  meme  avant  cette 
epoque  ou  1'esprit  de  parti  a  fait  disparaltre  la  ve>ite  de  la  terre." — MADAME 
DE  SrAfcL,  Proce*  de  la  Reine,  p.  2. 


THE  NECKLACE.  215 

its  being  spent  on  a  ship  for  the  nation,  to  replace  the  Ville  de 
Paris,  whose  loss  still  rankled  in  her  breast. 

The  king,  who  thought  that  she  must  secretly  wish  for  a  jewel 
of  such  unequaled  splendor,  offered  to  make  her  a  present  of  the 
necklace,  but  she  adhered  to  her  refusal.  Boehmer  was  greatly 
disappointed ;  he  had  exhausted  his  resources  and  his  credit  in 
collecting  the  stones  in  the  hope  of  making  a  grand  profit,  and 
declared  loudly  to  his  patrons  that  he  should  be  ruined  if  the 
queen  could  not  be  induced  to  change  her  mind.  His  com- 
plaints were  so  unrestrained  that  they  reached  the  ears  of  those 
who  saw  in  his  despair  a  possibility  of  enriching  themselves  at  his 
expense.  There  was  in  Paris  at  the  time  a  Countess  de  la  Mothe, 
who,  as  claiming  descent  from  a  natural  son  of  Henri  II.,  had 
added  Valois  to  her  name,  and  had  her  claim  to  royal  birth  so 
far  allowed  that,  as  she  was  in  very  destitute  circumstances,  she 
had  obtained  a  small  pension  from  the  crown.  Her  pension  and 
her  pretensions  had  perhaps  united  to  procure  her  the  hand  of 
the  Count  de  la  Mothe,  who  had  for  some  time  been  discredita- 
bly known  as  one  of  the  most  worthless  and  dangerous  advent- 
urers who  infested  the  capital.  But  her  marriage  had  been  no 
restraint  on  a  life  of  unconcealed  profligacy,  and  among  her  lov- 
ers she  reckoned  the  Cardinal  de  Rohan,  who,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  was  as  little  scrupulous  or  decent  as  herself. 

As,  however,  the  cardinal's  extravagance  had  left  him  with  lit- 
tle means  of  supplying  her  necessities,  Madame  La  Mothe  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  swindling  Boehmer  out  of  his  necklace,  and  of 
making  de  Rohan  an  accomplice  in  the  fraud.  The  one  thing 
which  in  the  transaction  is  difficult  to  determine  is  whether  the 
cardinal  was  her  willing  and  conscious  assistant,  or  her  dupe. 
That  his  capacity  was  of  the  very  lowest  order  was  notorious,  but 
he  was  a  man  who  had  been  bred  in  courts ;  he  knew  the  manner 
in  which  princes  transacted  their  business,  and  in  which  queens 
signed  their  names.  He  had  long  been  acquainted  with  Marie 
Antoinette's  figure  and  gestures  and  voice ;  while,  unhappily, 
there  was  nothing  in  his  character  which  was  incompatible  with 
his  becoming  an  accomplice  in  any  act  of  baseness. 

What  followed  was  a  drama  of  surprises.  It  was  with  as  much 
astonishment  as  indignation  that  Marie  Antoinette  learned  that 
Boehmer  believed  that  she  had  secretly  bought  the  necklace, 
which  openly  and  formally  she  had  refused,  and  that  he  was  look- 
ing to  her  for  the  payment  of  its  price.  And  about  a  fortnight 


216  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

later  it  was  like  a  thunder-clap  that  a  summons  came  upon  the 
Cardinal  de  Rohan,  who  had  just  been  performing  mass  before 
the  king  and  queen,  to  appear  before  them  in  Louis's  private  cab- 
inet, and  that  he  found  himself  subjected  to  an  examination  by 
Louis  himself,  who  demanded  of  him  with  great  indignation  an 
explanation  of  the  circumstances  that  had  led  him  to  represent 
himself  to  Boehmer  as  authorized  to  buy  a  necklace  for  the  queen. 
Terrified  and  confused,  he  gave  an  explanation  which  was  half  a 
confession ;  but  which  was  too  complicated  to  be  thoroughly  in- 
telligible. He  was  ordered  to  retire  into  the  next  room  and  write 
out  his  statement.  His  written  narrative  proved  more  obscure 
than  his  spoken  words.  In  spite  of  his  prayers  that  he  might 
be  spared  the  degradation  of  being  arrested  while  still  clad  in  his 
pontifical  habits,  he  was  at  once  sent  to  the  Bastile.  A  day  or 
two  afterward  Madame  La  Mothe  was  apprehended  in  the  prov- 
inces, and  Louis  directed  that  a  prosecution  should  be  instantly 
commenced  against  all  who  had  been  concerned  in  the  transac- 
tion. 

For  the  queen's  name  had  been  forged.  The  cardinal  did  not 
deny  that  he  had  represented  himself  to  Boehmer  as  employed 
by  her  for  the  purchase  of  the  jewel  which,  as  he  said,  she  se- 
cretly coveted,  and  for  the  payment  of  its  price  by  installments. 
But,  as  his  justification,  he  produced  a  letter  desiring  him  to  un- 
dertake the  business,  and  signed  "  Marie  Antoinette  de  France." 
He  declared  that  he  had  never  suspected  the  genuineness  of  this 
letter,  though  it  was  notorious  that  such  an  addition  to  their 
Christian  names  was  used  by  none  but  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
the  reigning  sovereign,  and  never  by  a  queen.  And  eventually 
his  whole  story  was  found  to  be  that  Madame  La  Mothe  had  in- 
duced him  to  believe  that  she  was  in  the  queen's  confidence,  and 
also  that  the  queen  coveted  the  necklace  and  was  resolved  to  ob- 
tain it ;  but  that  she  was  unable  at  once  to  pay  for  it ;  and  that, 
being  desirous  to  make  amends  to  the  cardinal  for  the  neglect 
with  which  she  had  hitherto  treated  him,  she  had  resolved  on  em- 
ploying him  to  make  arrangements  with  Boehmer  for  the  instant 
delivery  of  the  ornament,  and  for  her  payment  of  the  price  by  in- 
stallments. 

This  was  strange  enough  to  have  excited  the  suspicions  of 
most  men.  What  followed  was  stranger  still.  Not  content  with 
forging  the  queen's  handwriting,  Madame  La  Mothe  had  even,  if 
one  may  say  so,  forged  the  queen  herself.  She  had  assured  the 


PROSECUTION  OF  THE  CULPRITS.  217 

cardinal  that  Marie  Antoinette  had  consented  to  grant  him  a  se- 
cret interview ;  and  at  midnight,  in  the  gardens  of  Versailles,  had 
introduced  him  to  a  woman  of  notoriously  bad  character  named 
Oliva,  who  in  height  resembled  the  queen,  and  who,  in  a  confer- 
ence of  half  a  minute,  gave  him  a  letter  and  a  rose  with  the 
words,  "  You  know  what  this  means."  She  had  hardly  uttered 
the  words  when  Madame  La  Mothe  interrupted  the  pair  with  the 
warning  the  Countesses  of  Provence  and  Artois  were  approach- 
ing. The  mock  queen  retired  in  haste.  The  cardinal  pressed 
the  rose  to  his  heart ;  acted  on  the  letter ;  and  protested  that  he 
had  never  doubted  that  he  had  seen  the  queen,  and  had  been  act- 
ing on  her  commands  in  obtaining  the  necklace  from  Boehmer 
and  delivering  it  to  Madame  La  Mothe,  though  he  now  acknowl- 
edged that  he  had  been  imposed  upon,  and  offered  to  pay  the 
jeweler  for  his  property. 

There  were  not  wanting  those  who  advised  that  this  offer 
should  be  accepted,  and  that  the  matter  should  be  hushed  up, 
rather  than  that  a  prince  of  the  Church  should  be  publicly  dis- 
graced by  a  prosecution  for  fraud.  But  Louis  and  Marie  Antoi- 
nette both  rightly  judged  that  their  duty  as  sovereigns  of  the 
kingdom  forbade  them  to  compromise  justice  by  screening  dis- 
honesty. It  was  but  two  years  before  that  a  great  noble,  the 
most  eloquent  of  all  French  orators,  had  singled  out  Marie  Antoi- 
nette's love  of  justice  as  one  of  her  most  conspicuous,  as  it  was 
one  of  her  most  noble,  qualities ;  and  the  words  deserve  especial- 
ly to  be  remembered  from  the  melancholy  contrast  which  his  sub- 
sequent conduct  presents  to  the  voluntary  tribute  which  he  now 
paid  to  her  excellence.  In  1783,  the  young  Count  de  Mirabeau, 
pleading  for  the  restitution  of  his  conjugal  rights,  put  the  ques- 
tion to  the  judges  at  Aix  before  whom  he  was  arguing,  "  Which 
of  you,  if  he  desired  to  consecrate  a  living  personification  of  jus- 
tice, and  to  embellish  it  with  all  the  charms  of  beauty,  would  not 
set  up  the  august  image  of  our  queen  ?" 

She  and  her  husband  might  well  have  felt  they  were  bound  to 
act  up  to  such  a  eulogy.  Some  of  their  advisers  also,  and  espe- 
cially the  Baron  de  Breteuil  and  the  Abbe  de  Vermond,  fortified 
their  decision  with  their  advice ;  being,  in  truth,  greatly  influenced 
by  a  reason  which  they  forbore  to  mention,  namely,  by  their  sus- 
picion that  the  untiring  malice  of  the  queen's  enemies  would  not 
have  failed  to  represent  that  the  suppression  of  the  slightest  par- 
ticle of  the  truth  could  only  have  been  dictated  by  a  guilty  con- 


218  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

sciousness  which  felt  that  it  could  not  bear  the  light ;  and  that 
the  queen  had  forborne  to  bring  the  cardinal  into  court  solely  be- 
cause she  knew  that  he  was  in  a  situation  to  prove  facts  which 
would  deservedly  damage  her  reputation. 

It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  the  resolution  which  was  adopt- 
ed was  the  only  one  consistent  with  either  propriety  or  common 
sense.  However  plausible  may  be  the  arguments  which  in  this 
or  that  case  may  be  adduced  for  concealment,  the  common  in- 
stinct of  mankind,  which  rarely  errs  in  such  matters,  always  con- 
ceives a  suspicion  that  it  is  dictated  by  secret  and  discreditable 
motives ;  and  that  he  who  screens  manifest  guilt  from  exposure 
and  punishment  makes  himself  an  accomplice  in  the  wrong-doing, 
if  he  was  not  so  before.  But,  though  Louis  judged  rightly  for 
his  own  and  his  queen's  character  in  bringing  those  who  were 
guilty  of  forgery  and  robbery  to  a  public  trial,  the  result  inflict- 
ed an  irremediable  wound  on  one  great  institution,  furnishing  an 
additional  proof  how  incurably  rotten  the  whole  system  of  the 
Government  must  have  been,  when  corruption  without  shame  or 
disguise  was  allowed  to  sway  the  highest  judicial  tribunal  in  the 
country. 

The  Parliament  of  Paris,  constantly  endeavoring  throughout 
its  whole  history  to  encroach  upon  the  royal  prerogative,  had  al- 
ways founded  its  pretensions  on  its  purity  and  disinterestedness. 
Since  its  re-establishment  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  reign,  it 
had  advanced  its  claim  to  the  possession  of  those  virtues  more 
loudly  than  ever ;  yet  now,  in  the  very  first  case  which  came  be- 
fore it  in  which  a  noble  of  the  highest  rank  was  concerned,  it  was 
made  apparent  not  only  that  it  was  wholly  destitute  of  every 
quality  which  ought  to  belong  to  a  judicial  bench,  of  a  regard  for 
truth  and  justice,  and  even  of  a  knowledge  of  the  law  ;  but  that 
no  one  gave  it  credit  for  them,  and  that  every  one  regarded  the 
decision  to  be  given  as  one  which  would  depend,  not  on  the  mer- 
its of  the  case,  but  on  the  interest  which  the  culprits  might  be 
able  to  make  with  the  judges.* 

The  trial  took  place  in  May  of  the  following  year.  We  need 
not  enter  into  its  details ;  the  denials,  the  admissions,  the  mutu- 
al recriminations  of  the  persons  accused.  In  the  fate  of  the  La 
Mothes  and  Mademoiselle  Oliva  no  one  professed  to  be  concern- 

*  Madame  de  Campan,  "  ficlaircissements  Historiques,"  p.  461 ;  "  Marie  An- 
toinette et  le  Proces  du  Collier,"  par  M.  fimile  Cam  pardon,  p.  144,  aeq. 


THE  CARDINAL  ACQUITTED.  219 

ed ;  but  the  friends  of  the  cardinal  were  numerous,  rich,  and 
powerful ;  and  for  months  had  been  and  still  were  indefatigable 
in  his  cause.  Some  days  before  the  trial,  the  attorney-general 
had  become  aware  that  nearly  the  whole  of  the  Parliament  had 
been  gained  by  them ;  he  even  furnished  the  queen  with  a  list  of 
the  names  of  those  judges  who  had  promised  their  verdict  before- 
hand, and  of  the  means  by  which  they  had  been  won  over.  And 
on  the  decisive  morning  the  cardinal  and  his  friends  made  a  the- 
atrical display  which  was  evidently  intended  to  overawe  those 
members  of  the  Parliament  who  were  yet  unconvinced,  and  to  en- 
list the  sympathies  of  the  public  in  general.  He  himself  appear- 
ed at  the  bar  in  a  long  violet  cloak,  the  mourning  robe  of  cardi- 
nals ;  and  all  the  passages  leading  to  the  hall  of  justice  were  lined 
by  his  partisans,  also  in  deep  mourning ;  and  they  were  not  sole- 
ly his  own  relations,  the  nobles  of  the  different  branches  of  his 
family,  the  Soubises,  the  Rohans,  the  Guimen6es ;  but  though,  as 
princes  of  the  blood,  the  Condes  were  nearly  allied  to  the  king 
and  queen,  they  also  were  not  ashamed  to  swell  the  company  as- 
sembled, and  to  solicit  the  judges  as  they  passed  into  the  court  to 
disregard  alike  justice  and  their  own  oaths,  and  to  acquit  the  car- 
dinal, whatever  the  evidence  might  be  which  had  been,  or  was  to 
be,  produced  against  him.  They  were  only  asking  what  they  had 
already  assured  themselves  of  obtaining.  The  queen's  signature 
was  indeed  declared  to  be  a  forgery,  and  the  La  Mothes,  Made- 
moiselle Oliva,  and  a  man  named  Retaux  de  Villette,  who  had  been 
the  actual  writer  of  the  forged  letters,  were  convicted  and  sen- 
tenced to  the  punishment  which  the  counsel  for  the  crown  had 
demanded.  But  the  cardinal  was  acquitted,  as  well  as  a  notorious 
juggler  and  impostor  of  the  day,  called  Cagliostro,  who  had  ap- 
parently been  so  entirely  unconnected  with  the  transaction  that  it 
is  hot  easy  to  see  how  he  became  included  in  the  prosecution ; 
and  permission  was  given  to  the  cardinal  to  make  his  acquittal 
public  in  any  manner  and  to  any  extent  which  he  might  desire.* 
The  subsequent  history  of  the  La  Mothes  was  singular  and 
characteristic.  The  countess,  who  had  been  sentenced  to  be  flog- 
ged, branded,  and  imprisoned  for  life,  after  a  time  contrived,  it  is 
believed  by  the  aid  of  some  of  the  Rohan  family,  to  escape  from 


*  "  Permet  au  Cardinal  de  Rohan  et  au  dit  de  Cagliostro  de  faire  impriraer 
et  afficher  le  present  arret  partout  oil  bon  leur  semblera." — CAMPARDON,  p. 
152. 


220  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

prison.  She  fled  to  London,  where  for  some  time  she  and  her 
husband  lived  on  the  proceeds  of  the  necklace,  which  they  had 
broken  up  and  sold  piecemeal  to  jewelers  in  London  and  other 
cities ;  but  they  were  soon  reduced  to  great  distress.  After  the 
Revolution  had  broken  out  in  Paris,  they  tried  to  make  money 
by  publishing  libels  on  the  queen,  in  which  they  are  believed  to 
have  obtained  the  aid  of  some  who  in  former  times  had  been 
under  great  personal  obligations  to  Marie  Antoinette.  But  the 
scheme  failed :  they  were  overwhelmed  with  debt ;  writs  were  is- 
sued against  them,  and  in  trying  to  escape  from  the  sheriffs  of- 
ficers, the  countess  fell  from  a  window  at  the  top  of  a  house,  and 
received  injuries  which  proved  fatal. 

A  most  accomplished  writer  of  the  present  day,  who  has  de- 
voted much  care  and  ability  to  the  examination  of  the  case,  has 
pronounced  an  opinion  that  the  cardinal  was  innocent  of  dishon- 
esty,* and  limits  his  offense  to  that  of  insulting  the  queen  by  the 
mere  suspicion  that  she  could  place  her  confidence  in  such  an  un- 
worthy agent  as  Madame  La  Mothe,  or  that  he  himself  could  be 
allowed  to  recover  her  favor  by  such  means  as  he  had  employed. 
But  his  absolute  ignorance  of  the  countess's  schemes  is  not  entire- 
ly consistent  with  the  admitted  fact  that,  when  he  was  arrested, 
his  first  act  was  to  send  orders  to  his  secretary  to  burn  all  the  let- 
ters which  he  had  received  from  her  on  the  subject;  and  unques- 
tionably neither  Louis  nor  Marie  Antoinette  doubted  his  full  com- 
plicity in  the  conspiracy.  Louis  at  once  deprived  him  of  his  of- 
fice of  grand  almoner,  and  banished  him  from  the  court,  declaring 
that  "  he  knew  too  well  the  usages  of  the  court  to  have  believed 
that  Madame  La  Mothe  had  really  been  admitted  to  the  queen's 
presence  and  intrusted  with  such  a  commission.''!  And  Marie 
Antoinette  gave  open  expression  to  her  indignation  at  the  acquit- 
tal "  of  an  intriguer  who  had  sought  to  ruin  her,  or  to  procure 
'  money  for  himself,  by  abusing  her  name  and  forging  her  signa- 
ture," adding,  with  undeniable  truth,  that  still  more  to  be  pitied 
than  herself  was  a  "  nation  which  had  for  its  supreme  tribunal  a 
body  of  men  who  consulted  nothing  but  their  passions,  and  of 
whom  some  were  full  of  corruption,  and  others  were  inspired  with 


*  "  Sans  doute  le  cardinal  avait  les  mains  pures  de  toute  fraude ;  sans 
doute  il  n'etait  pour  rien  dans  I'escroquerie  commise  par  les  dpoux  de  La 
Mothe." — CAMPARDON,  p.  155. 

f  Campardon,  p.  1 53,  quoting  Madame  de  Campan. 


INDIGNATION  OF  THE  QUEEN.  221 

a  boldness  which  always  vented  itself  in  opposition  to  those  who 
were  clothed  with  lawful  authority."* 

But  her  magnanimity  and  her  sincere  affection  for  the  whole 
people  were  never  more  manifest  than  now  even  in  her  first  mo- 
ments of  indignation.  Even  while  writing'  to  Madame  de  Poli- 
gnac  that  she  is  "  bathed  in  tears  of  grief  and  despair,"  and  that 
she  can  "  hope  for  nothing  good  when  perverseness  is  so  busy  in 
seeking  means  to  chill  her  very  soul,"  she  yet  adds  that  "  she 
shall  triumph  over  her  enemies  by  doing  more  good  than  ever,  and 
that  it  will  be  easier  for  them  to  afflict  her  than  to  drive  her  to 
avenging  herself  on  them."f  And  she  uses  the  same  language  to 
her  sister  Christine,  even  while  expressing  still  more  strongly  her 
indignation  at  being  "  sacrificed  to  a  perjured  priest  and  a  shame- 
less intriguer."  She  demands  her  sister's  "  pity,  as  one  who  had 
never  deserved  such  injurious  treatment  ;J  but  who  had  only  recol- 
lected that  she  was  the  daughter  of  Maria  Teresa — to  fulfill  her 
mother's  exhortations,  always  to  show  herself  French  to  the  very 
bottom  of  her  heart ;"  but  she  concludes  by  repeating  the  declara- 
tion that  "  nothing  shall  tempt  her  to  any  conduct  unworthy  of 
herself,  and  that  the  only  revenge  that  she  will  take  shall  be  to  re- 
double her  acts  of  kindness." 

It  is  pleasing  to  be  able  to  close  so  odious  a  subject  by  the 
statement  that  the  disgrace  which  the  cardinal  had  thus  brought 
upon  himself  may  be  supposed  in  some  respects  to  have  served  as 
a  lesson  to  him,  and  that  his  conduct  in  the  latter  days  of  his  life 


*  The  most  recent  French  historian,  M.  H.  Martin,  sees  in  this  trial  a  proof 
of  the  general  demoralization  of  the  whole  French  nation.  "  L'impression  qui 
en  resulte  pour  nous  est  1'impossibilite  que  la  reine  ait  et6  coupable.  Mais 
plus  les  imputations  dirigees  centre  elle  6taient  vraisemblables,  plus  la  cre- 
ance  accordee  a  ces  imputations  etait  caracteristique,  et  attestait  la  ruine  mo- 
rale de  la  monarchic.  C'Stait  1'ombre  du  Pare  aux  Cerfs  qui  couvrait  tou- 
jours  Versailles." — Histoire  de  France,  xvi.,  p.  559,  ed.  1860. 

f  Feuillet  de  Conches,  i.,  p.  161. 

j  Feuillet  de  Conches,  i.,  p.  162.  Some  of  the  critics  of  M.  F.  de  Conches'  s 
collection  have  questioned  without  sufficient  reason  the  probability  of  there 
having  been  any  correspondence  between  the  queen  and  her  elder  sister.  But 
the  genuineness  of  this  letter  is  strongly  corroborated  by  a  mistake  into  which 
no  forger  would  have  fallen.  The  queen  speaks  as  if  the  cardinal  had  alleged 
that  he  had  given  her  a  rose ;  while  his  statement  really  was  that  Oliva,  per- 
sonating the  queen,  had  dropped  a  rose  at  his  feet.  A  forger  would  have 
made  the  letter  correspond  with  the  evidence  and  the  fact.  The  queen,  in 
her  agitation,  might  easily  make  a  mistake.  • 


222  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

was  such  as  to  do  no  discredit  to  the  noble  race  from  which  he 
sprung. 

A  great  part  of  his  diocese  as  Bishop  of  Strasburg  lay  on  the 
German  side  of  the  Rhine ;  and  thither,*  when  the  French  Revo- 
lution began  to  assume  the  blood-thirsty  character  which  has  made 
it  a  warning  to  all  future  ages,  he  was  fortunate  to  escape  in  safety 
from  the  fury  of  the  assassins  who  ruled  France.  And  though  he 
was  no  longer  rich,  his  less  fortunate  countrymen,  and  especially 
his  clerical  brethren,  found  in  him  a  liberal  protector  and  support  - 
er.f  He  even  levied  a  body  of  troops  to  re-enforce  the  royalist 
army.  But,  when  the  First  Consul  wrung  from  the  Pope  a  con- 
cordat of  which  he  disapproved,  he  resigned  his  bishopric,  and 
shortly  afterward  died  at  Ettenheim,J  where,  had  he  remained 
but  a  short  time  longer,  he,  like  the  Duke  d'Enghien,  might  have 
found  that  a  residence  in  a  foreign  land  was  no  protection  against 
the  ever-suspicious  enmity  of  Bonaparte. 

*  "  II  se  retira  dans  son  evechd  de  1'autre  cote  du  Rhin.  L&  sa  noble  con- 
duite  fit  oublier  les  tortes  de  sa  vie  passee,"etc. — CAMPARDON,  p.  156. 

f  Campardon,  p.  156. 

\  It  was  from  Ettenheim  that  the  Duke  d'Enghien  was  carried  off  in  March, 
1804.  The  cardinal  died  in  February,  1803. 


LOUIS'S  INTENTIONS  FRUSTRATED.  223 


CHAPTER  XXL 

The  King  visits  Cherbourg.  —  Rarity  of  Royal  Journeys.  —  The  Princess 
Christine  visits  the  Queen. — Hostility  of  the  Due  d'Orleans  to  the  Queen. — 
Libels  on  her. — She  is  called  Madame  Deficit. — She  has  a  Second  Daughter, 
who  dies. — 111  Health  of  the  Dauphin. — Unskillfulness  and  Extravagance  of 
Calonne's  System  of  Finance. — Distress  of  the  Kingdom. — He  assembles 
the  Notables. — They  oppose  his  Plans. — Letters  of  Marie  Antoinette  on  the 
Subject. — Her  Ideas  of  the  English  Parliament. — Dismissal  of  Calonne. — 
Character  of  Archbishop  Lomenie  de  Brienne. — Obstinacy  of  Necker. — 
The  Archbishop  is  appointed  Minister. — The  Distress  increases. — The  No- 
tables are  dissolved. — Violent  Opposition  of  the  Parliament. — Resemblance 
of  the  French  Revolution  to  the  English  Rebellion  of  1642. — Arrest  of 
d'Espremesnil  and  Montsabert. 

IT  was  owing  to  Marie  Antoinette's  influence  that  Louis  himself 
in  the  following  year  began  to  enter  on  a  line  of  conduct  which, 
if  circumstances  had  not  prevented  him  from  persevering  in  it, 
might  have  tended,  more  perhaps  than  any  thing  else  that  he 
could  have  done,  to  make  him  also  popular  with  the  main  body 
of  the  people.  The  emperor,  while  at  Versailles,  had  strongly 
pressed  upon  him  that  it  was  his  duty,  as  king  of  the  nation,  to 
make  himself  personally  acquainted  with  every  part  of  his  king- 
dom, to  visit  the  agricultural  districts,  the  manufacturing  towns, 
the  fortresses,  arsenals,  and  harbors  of  the  country.  Joseph  him- 
self had  practiced  what  he  preached.  No  corner  of  his  domin- 
ions was  unknown  to  him ;  and  it  is  plain  that  there  can  be  no 
nation  which  must  not  be  benefited  by  its  sovereign  thus  obtain- 
ing a  personal  knowledge  of  all  the  various  interests  and  resources 
of  his  subjects.  But  such  personal  investigations  were  not  yet  un- 
derstood to  be  a  part  of  a  monarch's  duties.  Louis's  contempo- 
rary, our  own  sovereign,  George  III.,  than  whom,  if  rectitude  of 
intention  and  benevolence  of  heart  be  the  principal  standards  by 
which  princes  should  be  judged,  no  one  ever  better  deserved  to 
be  called  the  father  of  his  country,  scarcely  ever  went  a  hundred 
miles  from  Windsor,  and  never  once  visited  even  those  Midland 
Counties  which  before  the  end  of  his  reign  had  begun  to  give  un- 
deniable tokens  of  the  contribution  which  their  industry  was  to 


224  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

furnish  to  the  growing  greatness  of  his  empire;  and  the  last  two 
kings  of  France,  though  in  the  course  of  their  long  reigns  they 
had  once  or  twice  visited  their  armies  while  waging  war  on  the 
Flemish  or  German  frontier,  had  never  seen  their  western  or 
southern  provinces. 

But  now  Marie  Antoinette  suggested  to  her  husband  that  it 
was  time  that  he  should  extend  his  travels,  which,  except  when 
he  had  gone  to  Rheims  for  his  coronation,  had  never  yet  carried 
him  beyond  Compiegne  in  one  direction  and  Fontainebleau  in 
another;  and,  as  of  all  the  departments  of  Government,  that 
which  was  concerned  with  the  marine  of  the  nation  interested  her 
most  (we  fear  that  she  was  secretly  looking  forward  to  a  renewal 
of  war  with  England),  she  persuaded  him  to  select  for  the  object 
of  his  first  visit  the  fort  of  Cherbourg  in  Normandy,  where  those 
great  works  had  been  recently  begun  which  have  since  been  con- 
stantly augmented  and  improved,  till  they  have  made  it  a  worthy 
rival  to  our  own  harbors  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Channel.  He 
was  received  in  all  the  towns  through  which  he  passed  with  real 
joy.  The  Normans  had  never  seen  their  king  since  Henry  IV. 
had  made  their  province  his  battle  -  field ;  and  the  queen,  who 
would  gladly  have  accompanied  him,  had  it  not  been  that  such  a 
journey  undertaken  by  both  would  have  resembled  a  state  pro- 
cession, and  therefore  have  been  tedious  and  comparatively  use- 
less, exulted  in  the  reception  which  he  had  met  with,  and  began 
to  plan  other  expeditions  of  the  same  kind  for  him,  feeling  as- 
sured that  his  presence  would  be  equally  welcomed  in  other  prov- 
inces— at  Bordeaux,  at  Lyons,  or  at  Toulon.  And  a  series  of  such 
visits  would  undoubtedly  have  been  calculated  to  strengthen  the 
attachment  of  the  people  everywhere  to  the  royal  authority; 
which,  already,  to  some  far-seeing  judges,  seemed  likely  soon  to 
need  all  the  re-enforcement  which  it  could  obtain  in  any  quarter. 

In  the  summer  of  1786  she  had  a  visit  from  her  sister  Christine, 
the  Princess  of  Teschen,  who,  with  her  husband,  had  been  joint 
governor  of  Hungary,  and  since  the  death  of  her  uncle,  Charles  of 
Lorraine,  had  been  removed  to  the  Netherlands.  She  had  never 
seen  her  sister  since  her  own  marriage,  and  the  month  which  they 
spent  together  at  "Versailles  may  be  almost  described  as  the  last 
month  of  perfect  enjoyment  that  Marie  Antoinette  ever  knew ;  for 
troubles  were  thickening  fast  around  the  Government,  and  were 
being  taken  wicked  advantage  of  by  her  enemies,  at  the  head  of 
whom  the  Due  d'Orleans  now  began  openly  to  range  himself.  He 


LIBELS  ON  THE  QUEEN.  225 

was  a  man  notorious,  as  has  been  already  seen,  for  every  kind  of 
infamy ;  and  though  he  well  knew  the  disapproval  with  which 
Marie  Antoinette  regarded  his  way  of  life  and  his  character,  it  is 
believed  that  he  had  had  the  insolence  to  approach  her  with  the 
language  of  gallantry ;  that  he  had  been  rejected  with  merited  in- 
dignation ;  and  that  he  ever  afterward  regarded  her  noble  disdain 
as  a  provocation  which  it  should  be  the  chief  object  of  his  life  to 
revenge.  In  fact,  on  one  occasion  he  did  not  scruple  to  avow  his 
resentment  at  the  way  in  which,  as  he  said,  she  had  treated  him  ; 
though  he  did  not  mention  the  reason.* 

Calumny  was  the  only  weapon  which  could  be  employed 
against  her ;  but  in  that  he  and  his  partisans  had  long  been 
adepts.  Every  old  libel  and  pretext  for  detraction  was  diligently 
revived.  The  old  nickname  of  "  The  Austrian  "  was  repeated  with 
pertinacity  as  spiteful  as  causeless ;  even  the  king's  aunts  lending 
their  aid  to  swell  the  clamor  on  that  ground,  and  often  saying, 
with  all  the  malice  of  their  inveterate  jealousy,  that  it  was  not  to 
be  expected  that  she  should  have  the  same  feelings  as  their  father 
or  Louis  XIV.,  since  she  was  not  of  their  blood,  though  it  was 
plain  that  the  same  remark  would  have  applied  to  every  Queen 
of  France  since  Anne  of  Brittany.  Even  the  embarrassments  of 
the  revenue  were  imputed  to  her ;  and  she,  who  had  curtailed  her 
private  expenses,  even  those  which  seemed  almost  necessary  to 
her  position,  that  she  might  minister  more  largely  to  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  poor — who  had  declined  to  buy  jewels  that  the  money 
might  be  applied  to  the  service  of  the  State— was  now  held  up 
to  the  populace  as  being  by  her  extravagance  the  prime  cause  of 
the  national  distress.  Pamphlets  and  caricatures  gave  her  a  new 
nickname  of  "  Madame  Deficit ;"  and  such  an  impression  to  her 
disfavor  was  thus  made  on  the  minds  of  the  lower  classes,  that 
a  painter,  who  had  just  finished  an  engaging  portrait  of  her  sur- 
rounded by  her  children,  feared  to  send  it  to  the  exhibition,  lest 
it  should  be  made  a  pretext  for  insult  and  violence.  Her  un- 
popularity did  not,  indeed,  last  long  at  this  time,  but  was  super- 
seded, as  we  shall  presently  see,  by  fresh  feelings  of  gratitude  for 
fresh  labors  of  charity ;  nevertheless,  the  outcry  now  raised  left 
its  seed  behind  it,  to  grow  hereafter  into  a  more  enduring  harvest 
of  distrust  and  hatred. 


*  "Lc  due  declarait  de  son  cote  a  Mr.  Elliott  que si  la  reine  1'efit 

mieux  trait£  il  cut  peut-etre  mieux  fait." — CHAMHKIKK,  i.,p.  519. 

15 


226  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

She  had  troubles,  too,  of  another  kind  which  touched  her  more 
nearly.  A  second  daughter,  Sophie,*  had  been  born  to  her  in 
the  summer  of  1786  ;  but  she  was  a  sickly  child,  and  died,  before 
she  was  a  year  old,  of  one  of  the  illnesses  to  which  children  are 
subject,  and  for  some  months  the  mother  mourned  bitterly  over 
her  "  little  angel,"  as  she  called  her.  Her  eldest  boy,  too,  was 
getting  rapidly  and  visibly  weaker  in  health :  his  spine  seemed  to 
be  diseased,  and  Marie  Antoinette's  only  hope  of  saving  him  rest- 
ed on  the  fact  that  his  father  had  also  been  delicate  at  the  same 
age.  Luckily  his  brother  gave  her  no  cause  for  uneasiness ;  as 
she  wrote  to  the  emperorf — "  he  had  all  that  his  elder  wanted ; 
he  was  a  thorough  peasant's  child,  tall,  stout,  and  ruddy."J  She 
had  also  another  comfort,  which,  as  her  troubles  thickened,  be- 
came more  and  more  precious  to  her,  in  the  warm  affection  that 
had  sprung  up  between  her  and  her  sister-in-law,  the  Princess 
Elizabeth.  A  letter§  has  been  preserved  in  which  the  princess 
describes  the  death  of  the  little  Sophie  to  one  of  her  friends, 
which  it  is  impossible  to  read  without  being  struck  by  the  sin- 
cerity of  the  sympathy  with  which  she  enters  into  the  grief  of 
the  bereaved  mother.  In  these  moments  of  anguish  she  showed 
herself  indeed  a  true  sister,  and,  the  two  clinging  to  one  another 
the  more  the  greater  their  dangers  and  distresses  became,  a  true 
sister  she  continued  to  the  end. 

Meanwhile  the  embarrassments  of  the  Government  were  daily 
assuming  a  more  formidable  appearance.  Calonne  had  for  some 
time  endeavored  to  meet  the  deficiency  of  the  revenue  by  raising 
fresh  loans,  till  he  had  completely  exhausted  the  national  credit ; 
and  at  last  had  been  forced  to  admit  that  the  scheme  originally 
propounded  by  Turgot,  and  subsequently  in  a  more  modified  de- 
gree by  Necker,  of  abolishing  the  exemptions  from  taxation  which 
were  enjoyed  by  the  nobles — the  privileged  classes,  as  they  were 
often  called — was  the  only  expedient  to  save  the  nation  from  the 
disgrace  and  ruin  of  total  bankruptcy.  But,  as  it  seemed  proba- 
ble that  the  nobles  would  resist  such  a  measure,  and  that  their  re- 
sistance would  prove  too  strong  for  him,  as  it  had  already  been 
found  to  be  for  his  predecessors,  he  proposed  to  the  king  to  re- 

*  Sophie  Helene  Beatrix,  born  July  9th,  1786,  died  June  9th,  1787,  F.  de 
Conches,  i.,  p.  195. 

f  See  her  letter  to  her  brother,  February,  1788,  Arneth,  p.  112. 

\  "C'est  un  vrai  enfant  de  paysan,  grand  frais  et  gros." — ARNETH,  pp.  113. 

§  Feuillet  de  Conches,  i.,  p.  195. 


HER  OPINION  OF  THE  NOTABLES.  227 

vive  an  old  assembly  which  had  been  known  by  the  title  of  the 
Notables ;  trusting  that,  if  he  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  sanction 
of  that  body  to  his  plans,  the  nobles  would  hardly  venture  to  in- 
sist on  maintaining  their  privileges  in  defiance  of  the  recorded 
judgment  of  so  respectable  a  council.  His  hopes  were  disap- 
pointed. He  might  fairly  have  reckoned  on  obtaining  their  con- 
currence, since  it  was  the  unquestioned  prerogative  of  the  king  to 
nominate  all  the  members ;  but,  even  when  he  was  most  deliber- 
ate and  resolute,  his  rashness  and  carelessness  were  incurable.  He 
took  no  pains  whatever  to  select  members  favorable  to  his  views ; 
and  the  consequence  was  that,  in  March,  1787,  in  the  very  first 
month  of  the  session  of  the  Notables,  the  whole  body  protested 
against  one  of  the  taxes  which  he  desired  to  impose ;  and  his 
enemies  at  once  urged  the  king  to  dismiss  him,  basing  their  rec- 
ommendation on  the  practice  of  England,  where,  as  they  affirmed, 
a  minister  who  found  himself  in  a  minority  on  an  important 
question  immediately  retired  from  office. 

Marie  Antoinette,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  a  diligent 
reader  of  Hume,  had  also  been  led  to  compare  the  proceedings  of 
the  refractory  Notables  with  the  conduct  of  our  English  parlia- 
mentary parties,  and  to  an  English  reader  some  of  her  comments 
can  not  fail  to  be  as  interesting  as  they  are  curious.  The  Duch- 
ess de  Polignac  was  drinking  the  waters  at  Bath,  which  at  that 
time  was  a  favorite  resort  of  French  valetudinarians,  and,  while 
she  was  still  in  that  most  beautiful  of  English  cities,  the  queen 
kept  up  an  occasional  correspondence  with  her.  We  have  two 
letters  which  Marie  Antoinette  wrote  to  her  in  April ;  one  on  the 
9th,  the  very  day  on  which  Calonne  was  dismissed ;  the  second, 
two  days  latter ;  and  even  the  passages  which  do  not  relate  to 
politics  have  their  interest  as  specimens  of  the  writer's  charac- 
ter, and  of  the  sincere  frankness  with  which  she  laid  aside  her 
rank  and  believed  in  the  possibility  of  a  friendship  of  complete 
equality. 

"April  9th,  1787. 

"  I  thank  you,  my  dear  heart,  for  your  letter,  which  has  done 
me  good.  I  was  anxious  about  you.  It  is  true,  then,  that  you 
have  not  suffered  much  from  your  journey.  Take  care  of  your- 
self, I  insist  on  it,  I  beg  of  you ;  and  be  sure  and  derive  benefit 
from  the  waters,  else  I  should  repent  of  the  privation  I  have  in- 
flicted on  myself  without  your  health  being  benefited.  When 
you  are  near  I  feel  how  much  I  love  you ;  and  I  feel  it  much 


228  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

more  when  you  are  far  away.  I  am  greatly  taken  up  with  you 
and  yours,  and  you  would  be  very  ungrateful  if  you  did  not  love 
me,  for  I  can  not  change  toward  you. 

"  Where  you  are  you  can  at  least  enjoy  the  comfort  of  never 
hearing  of  business.  Although  you  are  in  the  country  of  an  Up- 
per and  a  Lower  House,  you  can  stop  your  ears  and  let  people 
talk.  But  here  it  is  a  noise  that  deafens  one  in  spite  of  all  I  can 
do.  The  words  '  opposition '  and  '  motions '  are  established  here 
as  in  the  English  Parliament,  with  this  difference,  that  in  London, 
when  people  go  into  opposition,  they  begin  by  denuding  them- 
selves of  the  favors  of  the  king ;  instead  of  which,  here  numbers 
oppose  all  the  wise  and  beneficent  views  of  the  most  virtuous  of 
masters,  and  still  keep  all  he  has  given  them.  It  may  be  a  clever- 
er way  of  managing,  but  it  is  not  so  gentleman-like.  The  time  of 
illusion  is  past,  and  we  are  tasting  cruel  experience.  We  are  pay- 
ing dearly  to-day  for  our  zeal  and  enthusiasm  for  the  American 
war.  The  voice  of  honest  men  is  stifled  by  members  and  cabals. 
Men  disregard  principles  to  bind  themselves  to  words,  and  to  mul- 
tiply attacks  on  individuals.  The  seditious  will  drag  the  State  to 
its  ruin  rather  than  renounce  their  intrigues." 

And  in  her  second  letter  she  specifies  some  of  the  Opposition 
by  name ;  one  of  whom,  as  will  be  seen  hereafter,  contributed 

greatly  to  her  subsequent  miseries "  The  repugnance  which 

you  know  that  I  have  always  had  to  interfering  in  business  is  to- 
day put  cruelly  to  the  proof ;  and  you  would  be  as  tired  as  I  am 
of  all  that  goes  on.  I  have  already  spoken  to  you  of  our  Upper 
and  Lower  House,*  and  of  all  the  absurdities  which  take  place 
there,  and  of  the  nonsense  which  is  talked.  To  be  loaded  with 
benefits  by  the  king,  like  M.  de  Beauvau,  to  join  the  Opposition, 
and  to  surrender  none  of  them,  is  what  is  called  having  spirit  and 
courage.  It  is,  in  truth,  the  courage  of  infamy.  I  am  wholly 
surrounded  with  folks  who  have  revolted  from  him.  A  duke,f  a 
great  maker  of  motions,  a  man  who  has  always  a  tear  in  his  eye 
when  he  speaks,  is  one  of  the  number.  M.  de  La  Fayette  always 
founds  the  opinions  he  expresses  on  what  is  done  at  Philadel- 
phia. ....  Even  bishops  and  archbishops  belong  to  the  Opposi- 
tion, and  a  great  many  of  the  clergy  are  the  very  soul  of  the 
cabal.  You  may  judge,  after  this,  of  all  the  resources  which  they 
employ  to  overturn  the  plans  of  the  king  and  his  ministers." 

*  Apparently  she  means  the  Notables  and  the  Parliament, 
f  The  Due  de  Guines. 


CHARACTER  OF  LOMENIE  DE  BRIENNE.  229 

Calonne,  however,  as  has  already  been  intimated,  had  been  dis- 
missed from  office  before  this  last  letter  was  written.  There  had 
been  a  trial  of  strength  between  him  and  his  enemies ;  which  he, 
believing  that  he  had  won  the  confidence  of  Louis  himself,  reck- 
oned on  turning  to  his  own  advantage,  by  inducing  the  king  to 
dismiss  those  of  his  opponents  who  were  in  office.  To  his  aston- 
ishment, he  found  that  Louis  preferred  dispensing  with  his  own 
services,  and  the  general  voice  was  probably  correct  when  it  affirm- 
ed that  it  was  the  queen  who  had  induced  him  to  come  to  that 
decision. 

Lom6nie  de  Brienne,  Archbishop  of  Toulouse,  was  again  a  can- 
didate for  the  vacant  post,  and  De  Vermond  was  as  diligent  as  on 
the  previous  occasion*  in  laboring  to  return  the  obligations  un- 
der which  that  prelate  had  formerly  laid  him,  by  extolling  his 
abilities  and  virtues  to  the  queen,  and  recommending  him  as  a 
worthy  successor  to  Calonne,  whom  she  had  never  trusted  or 
liked.  In  reality,  the  archbishop  was  wholly  destitute  of  either 
abilities  or  virtues.  He  was  notorious  both  for  open  profligacy 
and  for  avowed  infidelity,  so  much  so  that  Louis  had  refused  to 
transfer  him  to  the  diocese  of  Paris,  on  the  ground  that  "  at  least 
the  archbishop  of  the  metropolis  ought  to  believe  in  God."f  But 
Marie  Antoinette  was  ignorant  of  his  character,  and  believed  De 
Vermond's  assurance  that  the  appointment  of  so  high  an  ecclesi- 
astic would  propitiate  the  clergy,  whose  opposition,  as  many  of 
her  letters  prove,  she  thought  specially  formidable,  and  for  whose 
support  she  knew  her  husband  to  be  nervously  anxious.  Some 
of  Calonne's  colleagues  strongly  urged  the  king  to  re-appoint 
Necker,  whose  recall  would  have  been  highly  popular  with  the 
nation.  But  Necker  had  recently  given  Louis  personal  offense  by 
publishing  a  reply  to  some  of  Calonne's  statements,  in  defiance  of 
the  king's  express  prohibition,  and  had  been  banished  from  Paris 
for  the  act ;  and  the  queen,  recollecting  how  he  had  formerly  re- 
fused to  withdraw  his  resignation  at  her  entreaty,  felt  that  she 
had  no  reason  to  expect  any  great  consideration  for  the  opinions 
or  wishes  of  either  herself  or  the  king  from  one  so  conceited  and 
self-willed,  who  would  be  likely  to  attribute  his  re-appointment, 
not  to  the  king's  voluntary  choice,  but  to  his  necessities:  she 

*  See  ante,  ch.  xviii. 

f  '"II  faut,'  dit-il,  avec  un  mouvement  d'impatience  qui  lui  fit  honneur, 
" '  que,  du  moins,  1'archevfique  de  Paris  croie  en  Dieu.' " — Souvenirs  par  le  Due 
de  Levit,  p.  102. 


230  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

therefore  strongly  pressed  that  the  archbishop  should  be  prefer- 
red. In  an  unhappy  moment  she  prevailed;*  and  on  the  1st  of 
May,  1787,  Lomenie  de  Brienne  was  installed  in  office  with  the 
title  of  Chief  of  the  Council  of  Finance. 

A  more  unhappy  choice  could  not  possibly  have  been  made. 
The  new  minister  was  soon  seen  to  be  as  devoid  of  information  and 
ability  as  he  was  known  to  be  of  honesty.  He  had  a  certain  grav- 
ity of  outward  demeanor  which  imposed  upon  many,  and  he  had 
also  the  address  to  lead  the  conversation  to  points  which  his  hear- 
ers understood  still  less  than  himself ;  dilating  on  finance  and  the 
money  market  even  to  the  ladies  of  the  court,  who  had  had  some 
share  in  persuading  the  queen  of  his  fitness  for  office,  f  But  his 
disposition  was  in  reality  as  rash  as  that  of  Calonne ;  and  it  was 
a  curious  proof  of  his  temerity,  as  well  as  of  his  ignorance  of  the 
feeling  of  parties  in  Paris,  that  though  he  knew  the  Notables  to  be 
friendly  to  him,  as  indeed  they  would  have  been  to  any  one  who 
might  have  superseded  Calonne,  he  dismissed  them  before  the  end 
of  the  month.  And  the  language  held  on  their  dissolution  both 
by  the  ministers  and  by  the  President  of  the  Notables,  and  which 
was  cheerfully  accepted  by  the  people,  is  remarkable  from  the  con- 
trast which  it  affords  to  the  feelings  which  swayed  the  national 
council  exactly  two  years  afterward.  Some  measures  of  retrench- 
ment which  the  Notables  had  recommended  had  been  adopted; 
some  reductions  had  been  made  in  the  royal  households ;  some 
costly  ceremonies  had  been  abolished ;  and  one  or  two  imposts, 
which  had  pressed  with  great  severity  on  the  poorer  classes,  had 
been  extinguished  or  modified.  And  not  only  did  M.  Lamoignon, 
the  Keeper  of  the  Seals,  in  the  speech  in  which  he  dismissed  them, 
venture  to  affirm  that  these  reductions  would  be  found  to  have  ef- 
fected all  that  was  needed  to  restore  universal  prosperity  to  the 
kingdom ;  but  the  President  of  the  Assembly,  in  his  reply,  thank- 
ed God  "  for  having  caused  him  to  be  born  in  such  an  age,  under 
such  a  government,  and  for  having  made  him  the  subject  of  a  king 
whom  he  was  constrained  to  love,"  and  the  thanksgiving  was  re- 
echoed by  the  whole  Assembly.  But  this  contentment  did  not 
last  long.  The  embarrassments  of  the  Treasury  were  too  serious 
to  be  dissipated  by  soft  speeches.  The  Notables  were  hardly  dis- 

*  The  continuer  of  Sismondi's  history,  A.  Renee,  however,  attributes  the 
archbishop's  appointment  to  the  influence  of  the  Baron  de  Brcteuil. 

f  "Son  grand  art  consistait  a  parler  a  chacun  des  choses  qu'il  croyait 
qu'on  ignorait." — DE  LETIS,  p.  100. 


VIOLENCE  OF  THE  PARLIAMENT.  231 

solved  before  the  archbishop  proposed  a  new  loan  of  an  enormous 
amount ;  and,  as  he  might  have  foreseen,  their  dissolution  revived 
the  pretensions  of  the  Parliament.  The  queen's  description  of 
the  rise  of  a  French  opposition  at  once  received  a  practical  com- 
mentary. The  debates  in  the  Parliament  became  warmer  than 
they  had  ever  been  since  the  days  of  the  Fronde :  the  citizens, 
sharing  in  the  excitement,  thronged  the  palace  of  the  Parliament, 
expressing  their  approval  or  disapproval  of  the  different  speakers 
by  disorderly  and  unprecedented  clamor ;  the  great  majority  hoot- 
ing down  the  minister  and  his  supporters,  and  cheering  those  who 
spoke  against  him.  The  Due  d'Orleans,  by  open  bribes,  gained 
over  many  of  the  councilors  to  oppose  the  court  in  every  thing. 
The  registration  of  several  of  the  edicts  which  the  minister  had 
sent  down  was  refused ;  and  one  member  of  the  Orleanist  party 
even  demanded  the  convocation  of  the  States  -  general,  formerly 
and  constitutionally  the  great  council  of  the  nation,  but  which 
had  never  been  assembled  since  the  time  of  Richelieu. 

The  archbishop  was  sometimes  angry,  and  sometimes  terrified, 
and  as  weak  in  his  anger  as  in  his  terror.  He  persuaded  the  king 
to  hold  a  bed  of  justice  to  compel  the  registration  of  the  edicts. 
When  the  Parliament  protested,  he  banished  it  to  Troyes.  In  less 
than  a  month  he  became  alarmed  at  his  own  vigor,  and  recalled  it. 
Encouraged  by  his  pusillanimity,  and  more  secure  than  ever  of  the 
support  of  the  citizens  who  had  been  thrown  into  consternation  by 
his  demand  of  a  second  loan,  nearly*  six  times  as  large  as  the  first, 
it  became  more  audacious  and  defiant  than  ever,  D'Orleans  openly 
placing  himself  at  the  head  of  the  malcontents.  Lomenie  per- 
suaded the  king  to  banish  the  duke,  and  to  arrest  one  or  two  of 
his  most  vehement  partisans ;  and  again  in  a  few  weeks  repented 
of  this  act  of  decision  also,  released  the  prisoners,  and  recalled  the 
duke. 

As  a  matter  of  course,  the  Parliament  grew  bolder  still.  Every 
measure  which  the  minister  proposed  was  rejected ;  and  under  the 
guidance  of  one  of  their  members,  Duval  d'Espremesnil,  the  coun- 
cilors at  last  proceeded  so  far  as  to  take  the  initiative  in  new  legis- 
lation into  their  own  hands.  In  the  first  week  in  May,  1788,  they 
passed  a  series  of  resolutions  affirming  that  to  be  the  law  which 
indeed  ought  to  have  been  so,  but  which  had  certainly  never  been 

*  The  loan  he  proposed  in  June  was  eighty  millions  (of  francs) ;  in  October, 
that  which  he  demanded  was  four  hundred  and  forty  millions. 


232  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

regarded  as  such  at  any  period  of  French  history.  One  declared 
that  magistrates  were  irremovable,  except  in  cases  of  misconduct ; 
another,  that  the  individual  liberty  and  property  of  every  citizen 
were  inviolable ;  others  insisted  on  the  necessity  of  convoking  the 
States-general  as  the  only  assembly  entitled  to  impose  taxes ;  and 
the  councilors  hoped  to  secure  the  royal  acceptance  of  these  reso- 
lutions by  some  previous  votes  which  asserted  that,  of  those  laws 
which  were  the  very  foundation  of  the  Constitution,  the  first  was 
that  which  assured  the  "  crown  to  the  reigning  house  and  to  its 
descendants  in  the  male  line,  in  the  order  of  primogeniture."* 

But  Louis,  or  rather  his  rash  minister,  was  not  to  be  so  concil- 
iated ;  and  a  scene  ensued  which  is  the  first  of  the  striking  paral- 
lels which  this  period  in  France  affords  to  the  events  which  had 
tajfen  place  in  England  a  century  and  a  half  before.  As  in  1642 
Charles  I.  had  attempted  to  arrest  members  of  the  English  Parlia- 
ment in  the  very  House  of  Commons,  so  the  archbishop  now  per- 
suaded Louis  to  send  down  the  captain  of  the  guard,  the  Marquis 
d'Agoust,  to  the  palace  of  the  Parliament,  to  seize  D'Espremesnil, 
and  another  councilor  named  Montsabert,  who  had  been  one  of 
his  foremost  supporters  in  the  recent  discussions.  They  behaved 
with  admirable  dignity.  Marie  Antoinette  was  not  one  to  betray 
her  husband's  counsels,  as  Henrietta  Maria  had  betrayed  those  of 
Charles.  D'Espremesnil  and  his  friend,  wholly  taken  by  surprise, 
had  had  no  warning  of  what  was  designed,  no  time  to  withdraw, 

*  It  is  worth  noticing  that  the  French  people  in  general  did  not  regard  the 
power  of  arbitrary  imprisonment  exercised  by  their  kings  as  a  grievance.  In 
their  eyes  it  was  one  of  his  most  natural  prerogatives.  A  year  or  two  before 
the  time  of  which  we  are  speaking,  Dr.  Moore,  the  author  of  "  Zeluco,"  and  fa- 
ther of  Sir  John  Moore,  who  fell  at  Corunna,  was  traveling  in  France,  and  was 
present  at  a  party  of  French  merchants  and  others  of  the  same  rank,  who  ask- 
ed him  many  questions  about  the  English  Constitution.  When  he  said  that 
the  King  of  England  could  not  impose  a  tax  by  his  own  authority,  "  they  said, 

with  some  degree  of  satisfaction,  'Cependant  c'est  assez  beau  cela.' " 

But  when  he  informed  them  "  that  the  king  himself  had  not  the  power  to  en- 
croach upon  the  liberty  of  the  meanest  of  his  subjects,  and  that  if  he  or  the 
minister  did  so,  damages  were  recoverable  in  a  court  of  law,  a  loud  and  pro- 
longed '  Diable !'  issued  from  every  mouth.  They  forgot  their  own  situation, 
and  turned  to  their  natural  bias  of  sympathy  with  the  king,  who,  they  all 
seemed  to  think,  must  be  the  most  oppressed  and  injured  of  manhood.  One 
of  them  at  last,  addressing  himself  to  the  English  politician,  said, '  Tout  ce 
que  je  puis  vous  dire,  monsieur,  c'est  que  votre  pauvre  roi  est  Men  a  plain- 
dre.' " — A  View  of  the  Society  and  Manners  in  France,  etc.,  by  Dr.  John  Moore, 
vol.  i.,  p.  47,  ed.  1793. 


ARREST  OF  THE  COUNCILORS.  233 

nor  in  all  probability  would  they  have  done  so  in  any  case. 
When  M.  d'Agoust  entered  the  council  hall  and  demanded  his 
prisoners,  there  was  a  great  uproar.  The  whole  Assembly  made 
common  cause  with  their  two  brethren  who  were  thus  threatened. 
"  We  are  all  d'Espremesnils  and  Montsaberts,"  was  their  unani- 
mous cry ;  while  the  tumult  at  the  doors,  where  a  vast  multitude 
was  collected,  many  of  whom  had  arms  in  their  hands  and  seemed 
prepared  to  use  them,  was  more  formidable  still.  But  D'Agoust, 
though  courteous  in  the  discharge  of  his  duty,  was  intrepid  and 
firm;  and  the  two  members  voluntarily  surrendered  themselves 
and  retired  in  custody,  while  the  archbishop  was  so  elated  with 
his  triumph  that  a  few  days  afterward  he  induced  the  king  to 
venture  on  another  imitation  of  the  history  of  England,  though 
now  it  was  not  Charles,  but  the  more  tyrannical  Cromwell,  whose 
conduct  was  copied.  Before  the  end  of  the  month  the  Governor 
of  Paris  entered  the  palace  of  the  Parliament,  seized  all  the  reg- 
isters and  documents  of  every  kind,  locked  the  doors,  and  closed 
them  with  the  king's  seal;  and- a  royal  edict  was  issued  suspend- 
ing all  the  parliaments  both  in  the  capital  and  the  provinces. 


234  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

Formidable  Riots  take  place  in  some  Provinces. — The  Archbishop  invites 
Necker  to  join  his  Ministry. — Letter  of  Marie  Antoinette  describing  her 
Interview  with  the  Archbishop,  and  her  Views. — Necker  refuses. — The 
Queen  sends  Messages  to  Necker. — The  Archbishop  resigns,  and  Necker 
becomes  Minister. — The  Queen's  View  of  his  Character. — General  Rejoicing. 
— Defects  in  Necker's  Character.  —  He  recalls  the  Parliament.  —  Riots  in 
Paris.  —  Severe  Winter.  —  General  Distress.  —  Charities  of  the  King  and 
Queen. — Gratitude  of  the  Citizens. — The  Princes  are  concerned  in  the  Li- 
bels published  against  the  Queen. — Preparations  for  the  Meeting  of  the 
States-general. — Long  Disuse  of  that  Assembly. — Need  of  Reform. — Vices 
of  the  Old  Feudal  System. — Necker's  Blunders  in  the  Arrangements  for  the 
Meeting  of  the  States. — An  Edict  of  the  King  concedes  the  Chief  Demands 
of  the  Commons. — Views  of  the  Queen. 

THE  whole  kingdom  was  thrown  into  great  and  dangerous  ex- 
citement by  these  transactions.  Little  as  were  the  benefits  which 
the  people  had  ever  derived  from  the  conduct  of  the  Parliament, 
their  opposition  to  the  archbishop,  who  had  already  had  time  to 
make  himself  generally  hated  and  despised,  caused  the  councilors 
to  be  very  generally  regarded  as  champions  of  liberty ;  and  in 
the  most  distant  provinces,  in  Beam,  in  Isere,  and  in  Brittany, 
public  meetings  (a  thing  hitherto  unknown  in  the  history  of  the 
nation)  were  held,  remonstrances  were  drawn  lip,  confederacies 
were  formed,  and  oaths  were  administered  by  which  those  who 
took  them  bound  themselves  never  to  surrender  what  they  affirm- 
ed to  be  the  ancient  privileges  of  the  nation. 

The  archbishop  became  alarmed ;  a  little,  perhaps,  for  the  na- 
tion and  the  king,  but  far  more  for  his  own  place,  which  he  had 
already  contrived  to  render  profitable  to  himself  by  the  prefer- 
ments which  it  had  enabled  him  to  engross.  And,  in  the  hope 
of  saving  it,  he  now  entreated  Necker  to  join  the  Government, 
proposing  to  yield  up  the  management  of  the  finances  to  him, 
and  to  retain  only  the  post  of  prime  minister. 

A  letter  from  the  queen  to  Mercy  shows  that  she  acquiesced 
in  the  scheme.  Her  disapproval  of  Necker's  past  conduct  was 
outweighed  by  her  sense  of  the  need  which  the  State  had  of  his 


HER  OPINION  OF  DIFFERENT  STATESMEN.  235 

financial  talents ;  though,  for  reasons  which  she  explains,  she  was 
unwilling  wholly  to  sacrifice  the  archbishop ;  and  the  letter  has  a 
further  interest  as  displaying  some  of  the  difficulties  which  arose 
from  the  peculiar  disposition  of  the  king,  while  every  one  was 
daily  more  and  more  learning  to  look  upon  her  as  the  more  im- 
portant person  in  the  Government.  On  the  19th  of  August,  1788, 
she  writes  to  Mercy,*  whom  the  archbishop  had  employed  as  his 
agent  to  conciliate  the  stubborn  Swiss  banker : 

"  The  archbishop  came  to  me  this  morning,  immediately  after 
he  had  seen  you,  to  report  to  me  the  conversation  which  he  had 
had  with  you.  I  spoke  to  him  very  frankly,  and  was  touched  by 
what  he  said.  He  is  at  this  moment  with  the  king,  to  try  and 
get  him  to  decide ;  but  I  very  much  fear  that  M.  Necker  will  not 
accept  while  the  archbishop  remains.  The  animosity  of  the  pub- 
lic against  him  is  pushed  so  far  that  M.  Necker  will  be  afraid  of 
being  compromised,  and,  indeed,  perhaps  it  might  injure  his  cred- 
it ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  what  is  to  be  done  ?  In  truth  and  con- 
science we  can  not  sacrifice  a  man  who  has  made  for  us  all  these 
sacrifices  of  his  reputation,  of  his  position  in  the  world,  perhaps 
even  of  his  life ;  for  I  fear  they  would  kill  him.  There  is  yet  M. 
Foulon,  if  M.  Necker  refuses  absolutely.f  But  I  suspect  him  of 
being  a  very  dishonest  man ;  and  confidence  would  not  be  estab- 
lished with  him  for  comptroller.  I  fear,  too,  that  the  public  is 
pressing  us  to  take  a  part  much  more  humiliating  for  the  minis- 
ters, and  much  more  vexatious  for  ourselves,  inasmuch  as  we  shall 
have  done  nothing  of  our  own  will.  I  am  very  unhappy.  I  will 
close  my  letter  after  I  know  the  result  of  this  evening's  confer- 
ence. I  greatly  fear  the  archbishop  will  be  forced  to  retire  alto- 
gether, and  then  what  man  are  we  to  take  to  place  at  the  head  of 
the  whole?  For  we  must  have  one,  especially  with  M.  Necker. 
He  must  have  a  bridle ;  and  the  person  who  is  above  mej  is  not 
able  to  be  such ;  and  I,  whatever  people  may  say,  and  whatever 
happens,  am  never  any  thing  but  second ;  and,  in  spite  of  the 
confidence  which  the  first  has  in  me,  he  often  makes  me  feel 
it The  archbishop  has  just  gone.  The  king  is  very  unwill- 

*  Feuillet  de  Conches,  i.,  p.  205. 

f  M.  Foulon  was  about  this  time  made  paymaster  of  the  army  and  navy, 
and  was  generally  credited  with  ability  as  a  fipancier ;  but  he  was  unpopular, 
as  a  man  of  ardent  and  cruel  temper,  and  was  brutally  murdered  by  the  mob 
in  one  of  the  first  riots  of  the  Revolution. 

\  The  king. 


236  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

ing ;  and  could  only  be  brought  to  make  up  his  mind  by  a  prom- 
ise that  the  person*  should  only  be  sounded ;  and  that  no  positive 
engagement  should  be  made." 

Necker  refused.  The  next  day  Mercy  reported  to  the  queen 
that,  though  the  excitement  was  great,  it  confined  itself  to  de- 
nunciations of  the  archbishop  and  of  the  keeper  of  the  seals  ;  and 
that  "the  name  of  the  queen  had  never  once  been  mentioned;" 
and  on  the  22d,  Marie  Antoinette,!  from  a  conviction  of  the 
greatness  of  the  emergency,  determined  to  see  Necker  herself ; 
and  employed  the  embassador  and  De  Vermond  to  let  him  know 
that  her  own  wish  for  his  restoration  to  the  direction  of  the 
finances  was  sincere  and  earnest,  and  to  promise  him  that  the  arch- 
bishop should  not  interfere  in  that  department  in  any  way  what- 
ever. Two  days  later,J  she  wrote  again  to  mention  that  the  king 
had  vanquished  his  repugnance  to  Necker,  and  had  come  wholly 
over  to  her  opinion.  "Time  pressed,  and  it  was  more  essential 
than  ever  that  Necker  should  accept ;"  and  on  the  25th  she  writes 
a  final  letter  to  report  to  Mercy  that  the  archbishop  has  resigned, 
and  that  she  has  just  summoned  Necker  to  come  to  her  the  next 
morning.  Though  she  felt  that  she  had  done  what  was  both 
right  and  indispensable,  she  was  not  without  misgivings.  "  If," 
she  writes,  in  a  strain  of  anxious  despondency  very  foreign  to  her 
usual  tone,  and  which  shows  how  deeply  she  felt  the  importance 
of  the  crisis,  and  of  every  step  that  might  be  taken — "  if  he  will 
but  undertake  the  task,  it  is  the  best  thing  that  can  be  done  ;  but 
I  tremble  (excuse  my  weakness)  at  the  fact  that  it  is  I  who  have 
brought  him  back.  It  is  my  fate  to  bring  misfortune,  and,  if  in- 
fernal machinations  should  cause  him  once  more  to  fail,  or  if  he 
should  lower  the  authority  of  the  king,  they  will  hate  me  still 
more." 

In  one  point  of  view  she  need  not  have  trembled  at  being 
known  to  have  caused  Necker's  re-appointment,  since  it  is  plain 
that  no  other  nomination  was  possible.  Vergennes  had  died  a 
few  months  before,  and  the  whole  kingdom  did  not  supply  a 
single  statesman  of  reputation  except  Necker.  Nor  could  any 
choice  have  for  the  moment  been  more  universally  popular.  The 
citizens  illuminated  Paris ;  the  mob  burned  the  archbishop  in  effi- 
gy ;  and  the  leading  merchants  and  bankers  showed  their  ap- 

*  Necker.  f  Feuillet  de  Conches,  i.,  p.  214.  \  Ibid.,  p.  217. 


RESULTS  OF  NECKER'S  RESUMPTION  OF  OFFICE.     237 

proval  in  a  far  more  practical  way.  The  funds  rose ;  loans  to 
any  amount  were  freely  offered  to  the  Treasury  ;  the  national 
credit  revived  ;  as  if  the  solvency  or  insolvency  of  the  nation  de- 
pended on  a  single  man,  and  him  a  foreigner. 

Yet,  if  regarded  in  any  point  of  view  except  that  of  a  financier, 
he  was  extremely  unfit  to  be  the  minister  at  such  a  crisis ;  and 
the  queen's  acuteness  had,  in  the  extract  from  her  letter  which 
has  been  quoted  above,  correctly  pointed  out  the  danger  to  be 
apprehended,  namely,  that  he  might  lower  the  authority  of  the 
king.*  It  was,  in  fact,  to  his  uniform  and  persistent  degradation 
of  the  king's  authority  that  the  greater  part,  if  not  the  whole,  of 
the  evils  which  ensued  may  be  clearly  traced,  and  the  cause  that  led 
him  to  adopt  this  fatal  system  was  thoroughly  visible  to  one  gift- 
ed with  such  intuitive  penetration  into  character  as  Marie  Antoi- 
nette. For  he  had  two  great  defects  or  weaknesses ;  an  overween- 
ing vanity,  which,  as  it  valued  applause  above  every  thing,  led  him 
to  regard  the  popularity  which  they  might  win  for  him  as  the  nat- 
ural motive  and  the  surest  test  of  his  actions ;  and  an  abstract  be- 
lief in  human  perfection  and  in  the  submission  of  all  classes  to 
strict  reason,  which  could  only  proceed  from  a  total  ignorance  of 
mankind,  f  Yet,  greatly  as  financial  skill  was  needed,  if  the  king- 
dom was  to  be  saved  from  the  bankruptcy  which  seemed  to  be 
imminent,  it  was  plain  that  a  faculty  for  organization  and  legis- 
lation was  no  less  indispensable  if  the  vessel  of  the  State  was  to 
be  steered  safely  along  the  course  on  which  it  was  entering ;  for 
the  archbishop's  last  act  had  been  to  induce  the  king  to  promise 
to  convoke  the  States-general.  The  1st  of  May  of  the  ensuing 
year  was  fixed  for  their  meeting ;  and  the  arrangements  for  and 
the  management  of  an  assembly,  which,  as  not  having  met  for 
nearly  two  hundred  years,  could  not  fail  to  present  many  of  the 

*  On  one  occasion  when  the  Marquis  de  Bouille  pointed  out  to  him  the  dan- 
ger of  some  of  his  plans  as  placing  the  higher  class  at  the  mercy  of  the  mob, 
"  dirige  par  les  deux  passions  les  plus  actives  du  coeur  humain,  l'inter£t  et 

1'amour  propre, il  me  r6pondit  froidement,  en  levant  les  yeux  au  ciel,  qu'il 

fallait  bien  compter  sur  les  vertus  morales  des  hommes." — Memoires  deM.de 
Boutile,  p.  70 ;  and  Madame  de  Stae'l  admits  of  her  father  that  he  was  "  se 
fiant  trop,  il  faut  1'avouer,  a  I'empire  de  la  raison,"  and  adds  that  he  "  etudia 
constamment  1'esprit  public,  comme  la  boussole  a  laquelle  les  decisions  du  roi 
devaient  se  conformer." — Consideration*  sur  la  Revolution  Franyaise,  i.,  pp. 
171,172. 

f  Her  exact  words  are  "si il  fasse  reculer  1'autorite  du  roi"  (if  he 

causes  the  king's  authority  to  retreat  before  the  populace  or  the  Parliament). 


238  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

features  of  an  entire  novelty,  were  a  task  which  would  have  se- 
verely tested  the  most  statesman-like  capacity. 

But,  unhappily,  Necker's  very  first  acts  showed  him  equally 
void  of  resolution  and  of  sagacity.  He  was  not  only  unable  to 
estimate  the  probable  conduct  of  the  people  in  future,  but  he 
showed  himself  incapable  of  profiting  by  the  experience  of  the 
past ;  and,  in  spite  of  the  insubordinate  spirit  which  the  Parlia- 
ment had  at  all  times  displayed,  he  at  once  recalled  them  in  defer- 
ence to  the  clamor  of  the  Parisian  citizens,  and  allowed  them  to 
enter  Paris  in  a  triumphal  procession,  as  if  his  very  object  had 
been  to  parade  their  victory  over  the  king's  authority.  Their  re- 
turn was  the  signal  for  a  renewal  of  riots,  which  assumed  a  more 
formidable  character  than  ever.  The  police,  and  even  the  guard- 
houses, were  attacked  in  open  day,  and  the  Government  had  rea- 
son to  suspect  that  the  money  which  was  employed  in  fomenting 
the  tumults  was  supplied  by  the  Due  d'Orleans.  A  fierce  mob  trav- 
ersed the  streets  at  night,  terrifying  the  peaceable  inhabitants 
with  shouts  of  triumph  over  the  king  as  having  been  compelled 
to  recall  the  Parliament  against  his  will ;  while  those  who  were 
supposed  to  be  adverse  to  the  pretensions  of  the  councilors  were 
insulted  in  the  streets,  and  branded  as  Royalists,  the  first  time  in 
the  history  of  the  nation  that  ever  that  name  had  been  used  as  a 
term  of  reproach. 

Yet,  presently  the  whole  body  of  citizens,  with  their  habitual 
impulsive  facility  of  temper,  again,  for  a  while,  became  Royalists. 
The  winter  was  one  of  unprecedented  severity.  By  the  begin- 
ning of  December  the  Seine  was  frozen  over,  and  the  whole  adja- 
cent country  was  buried  in  deep  snow.  Wolves  from  the  neigh- 
boring forests,  desperate  with  hunger,  were  said  to  have  made 
their  way  into  the  suburbs,  and  to  have  attacked  people  in  the 
streets.  Food  of  every  kind  became  scarce,  and  of  the  poorer 
classes  many  were  believed  to  have  died  of  actual  starvation. 
Necker,  as  head  of  the  Government,  made  energetic  and  judicious 
efforts  to  relieve  the  universal  distress,  forming  magazines  in  dif- 
ferent districts,  facilitating  the  means  of  transport,  finding  em- 
ployment for  vast  numbers  of  laborers  and  artisans,  and  purchas- 
ing large  quantities  of  grain  in  foreign  countries ;  and,  not  only 
were  Louis  and  Marie  Antoinette  conspicuous  for  the  unstinting 
liberality  with  which  they  devoted  their  own  funds  to  the  supply 
of  the  necessities  of  the  destitute,  but  the  queen,  in  many  cases 
of  unusual  or  pressing  suffering  that  were  reported  to  her  in  Ver- 


CHARITY  OF  THE  QUEEN.  239 

saillcs  and  the  neighboring  villages,  sent  trustworthy  persons  to 
investigate  them,  and  in  numerous  instances  went  herself  to  the 
cottages,  making  personal  inquiries  into  the  condition  of  the  oc- 
cupants, and  showing  not  only  a  feeling  heart,  but  a  considerate 
and  active  kindness,  which  doubled  the  value  of  her  benefactions 
by  the  gracious,  thoughtful  manner  in  which  they  were  bestowed. 
She  would  willingly  have  done  the  good  she  did  in  secret,  part- 
ly from  her  constant  feeling  that  charity  was  not  charity  if  it 
were  boasted  of,  partly  from  a  fear  that  those  ready  to  miscon- 
strue all  her  acts  would  find  pretexts  for  evil  and  calumny  even  in 
her  bounty.  One  of  her  good  deeds  struck  Necker  as  of  so  re- 
markable a  character  that  he  pressed  her  to  allow  him  to  make  it 
known.  "  Be  sure,  on  the  contrary,"  she  replied,  "  that  you  never 
mention  it.  What  good  could  it  do?  they  would  not  believe 
you;"*  but  in  this  she  was  mistaken.  Her  charities  were  too 
widely  spread  to  escape  the  knowledge  even  of  those  who  did  not 
profit  by  them ;  and  they  had  their  reward,  though  it  was  but  a 
short-lived  one.  Though  the  majority  of  her  acts  of  personal 
kindness  were  performed  in  Versailles  rather  than  in  Paris,  the 
Parisians  were  as  vehement  in  their  gratitude  as  the  Versaillese ; 
and  it  found  a  somewhat  fantastic  vent  in  the  erection  of  pyra- 
mids and  obelisks  of  snow  in  different  quarters  of  the  city,  all 
bearing  inscriptions  testifying  the  citizens'  sense  of  her  benevo- 
lence. One,  which  far  exceeded  all  its  fellows  in  size — the  chief 
beauty  of  works  of  that  sort — since  it  was  fifteen  feet  high,  and 
each  of  the  four  faces  was  twelve  feet  wide  at  the  base,  was  dec- 
orated with  a  medallion  of  the  royal  pair,  and  bore  a  poetical  in- 
scription commemorating  the  cause  of  its  erection : 

"  Reine,  dont  la  beaut6  surpasse  les  appas 
Pres  d'un  roi  bienfaisant  occupe  ici  la  place. 
Si  ce  monument  frele  eat  de  neige  et  de  glace, 

Nos  coeurs  pour  toi  ne  le  sont  pas. 

De  ce  monument  sans  exemple, 
Couple  auguste,  1'aspect  bien  doux  pour  votre  coaur 
Sans  doute  vous  plaira  plus  qu'un  palais,  qu'un  temple 

Que  vous  eleverait  un  peuple  adulateur."f 

Neither  the  queen's  feelings  nor  her  conduct  had  been  in  any 
way  altered;  but  six  months  later  the  same  populace  who  raised 

*  "Histoire  de  Marie  Antoinette,"  par  M.  Montjoye,  p.  202. 
f  Madame  de  Campan,  p.  412. 


240  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

this  monument  and  applauded  these  verses  were,  with  ferocious 
and  obscene  threats,  clamoring  for  her  blood.  And  there  is  hard- 
ly any  thing  more  strange  or  more  grievous  in  the  history  of  the 
nation,  hardly  any  greater  proof  of  that  incurable  levity  which 
was  one  great  cause  of  the  long  series  of  miseries  which  soon  fell 
upon  it,  than  that  the  impressions  of  gratitude  which  were  so 
vivid  at  the  moment,  and  so  constantly  revived  by  the  queen's  un- 
tiring benevolence,  could  yet  be  so  easily  effaced  by  the  acts  of 
demagogues  and  libelers,  whom  the  people  thoroughly  despised 
even  while  suffering  themselves  to  be  led  by  them.  How  great  a 
part  in  these  libels  was  borne  by  those  who  were  bound  by  ev- 
ery tie  of  blood  to  the  king  to  be  his  warmest  supporters,  we 
have  a  remarkable  proof  in  an  Edict  of  Council  which  was  issued 
during  the  ministry  of  the  archbishop,  and  which  deprived  the 
palaces  of  the  Count  de  Provence,  the  Count  d'Artois,  and  the 
Due  d'Orleans  of  their  usual  exemption  from  the  investigation  of 
the  syndics  of  the  library,  as  those  officers  were  called  whose 
duty  it  was  to  search  all  suspected  places  for  libelous  or  seditious 
pamphlets ;  the  reason  publicly  given  for  this  edict  being  that 
the  dwellings  of  these  three  princes  were  a  perfect  arsenal  for  the 
issue  of  publications  contrary  to  the  laws,  to  morality,  and  to  re- 
ligion.* 

With  the  return  of  spring,  the  severity  of  the  distress  began 
to  pass  away.  But,  even  while  it  lasted,  it  scarcely  diverted  the 
attention  of  the  middle  classes  from  the  preparations  for  the  ap- 
proaching meeting  of  the  States-general,  from  which  the  whole 
people,  with  few  exceptions,  promised  themselves  great  advan- 
tages, though  comparatively  few  had  formed  any  precise  notion  of 
the  benefits  which  they  expected,  or  of  the  mode  in  which  they 
were  to  be  attained.  The  States-general  had  been  originally  es- 
tablished in  the  same  age  which  saw  the  organization  of  our  own 
Parliament,  with  very  nearly  the  same  powers,  though  the  mem- 
bers had  more  of  the  narrower  character  of  delegates  of  their  con- 
stituents than  was  the  case  in  England,  where  they  were  more 
wisely  regarded  as  representatives  of  the  entire  nation. f  And  it 

*  This  edict  was  registered  in  the  "Chambre  Syndicate,"  September  13th, 
1787. — La  Heine  Marie  Antoinette  et  la  Rev.  Francaise,  Recherches  HistoriqueSy 
par  le  Comte  de  Bel-Castel,  p.  246. 

f  There  is  at  the  present  moment  so  strong  a  pretension  set  up  in  many  con- 
stituencies to  dictate  to  the  members  whom  they  send  to  Parliament  as  if  they 
were  delegates,  and  not  representatives,  that  it  is  worth  while  to  refer  to  the 


ADMITTED  NECESSITY  OF  REFORM.  241 

was  an  acknowledged  principle  of  their  constitution  that  they 
could  neither  propose  any  measure  nor  ask  for  the  redress  of  any 
grievance  which  was  not  expressly  mentioned  in  the  instructions 
with  which  their  constituents  furnished  them  at  the  time  of  their 
election. 

In  England,  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament,  by  a  vigilant  and 
systematic  perseverance,  had  gradually  extorted  from  the  sovereign 
a  great  and  progressive  enlargement  of  their  original  powers,  till 
they  had  almost  engrossed  the  entire  legislative  authority  in  the 
kingdom.  But  in  France,  a  variety  of  circumstances  had  prevent- 
ed the  States -general  from  arriving  at  a  similar  development. 
And,  consequently,  as  in  human  affairs  very  little  is  stationary, 
their  authority  had  steadily  diminished,  instead  of  increasing,  till 
they  had  become  so  powerless  and  utterly  insignificant  that,  since 
the  year  1615,  they  had  never  once  been  convened.  Not  only 
had  they  been  wholly  disused,  but  they  seemed  to  have  been 
wholly  forgotten.  During  the  last  two  reigns  no  one  had  ever 
mentioned  their  name ;  much  less  had  any  wish  been  expressed 
for  their  resuscitation,  till  the  financial  difficulties  of  the  Govern- 
ment, and  the  general  and  growing  discontent  of  the  great  major- 
ity of  the  nation,  with  which,  since  the  death  of  Turgot,  every 
successive  minister  had  been  manifestly  incompetent  to  deal,  had, 
as  we  have  seen,  led  some  ardent  reformers  to  demand  their  resto- 

opinion  which  the  greatest  of  philosophical  statesmen,  Edmund  Burke,  ex- 
pressed on  the  subject  a  hundred  years  ago,  in  opposition  to  that  of  a  rival 
candidate  who  admitted  and  supported  the  claim  of  constituents  to  furnish 
the  member  whom  they  returned  to  Parliament  with  "  instructions  "  of  "  co- 
ercive authority."  He  tells  the  citizens  of  Bristol  plainly  that  such  a  claim 
he  ought  not  to  admit,  and  never  will.  The  "opinion  of  constituents  is  a 
weighty  and  respectable  opinion,  which  a  representative  ought  always  to  re- 
joice to  hear,  and  which  he  ought  most  seriously  to  consider ;  but  authorita- 
tive instruction,  mandates  issued  which  the  member  is  bound  blindly  and  im- 
plicitly to  obey,  to  vote,  and  to  argue  for,  though  contrary  to  the  clearest  con- 
viction of  his  judgment  and  his  conscience ;  these  are  things  utterly  unknown 
to  the  laws  of  this  land,  and  which  arise  from  a  fundamental  mistake  of  the 
whole  order  and  tenor  of  our  constitution.  Parliament  is  not  a  congress  of 

embassadors  from  different  and  hostile  interests but  Parliament  is  &ddib- 

erative  assembly  of  one  nation,  with  one  interest,  that  of  the  whole,  where  not 
local  purposes,  not  local  prejudices  ought  to  guide,  but  the  general  good  re- 
sulting from  the  general  reason  of  the  whole.  You  choose  a  member  indeed ; 
but  when  you  have  chosen  him,  he  is  not  member  of  Bristol,  but  he  is  a  mem- 
ber of  Parliament." — General  Election  Speech  at  the  Conclusion  of  the  Poll  at 
Bristol,  November  3d,  1774,  Burke's  Works,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  19,  20,  ed.  1803. 

16 


242  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

ration,  as  the  one  expedient  which  had  not  been  tried,  and  which, 
therefore,  had  this  in  its  favor,  that  it  was  not  condemned  by  pre- 
vious failure. 

That  great  reforms  were  indispensable  was  admitted  in  every 
quarter.  There  was  no  country  in  Europe  where  the  feudal  sys- 
tem had  received  so  little  modification.*  Every  law  seemed  to 
have  been  made,  and  every  custom  to  have  been  established  for 
the  exclusive  benefit  of  the  nobles.  They  were  even  exempted 
from  many  of  the  taxes,  an  exemption  which  was  the  more  intol- 
erable from  the  vast  number  of  persons  who  were  included  in  the 
list.  Practically  it  may  be  said  that  there  were  two  classes  of  no- 
bles— the  old  historic  houses,  as  they  were  sometimes  called,  such 
as  the  Grammonts  or  Montmorcncies,  which  were  not  numerous, 
and  many  of  which  had  greatly  decayed  in  wealth  and  influence ; 
and  an  inferior  class  whose  nobility  was  derived  from  their  pos- 
session of  office  under  the  crown  in  any  part  of  the  kingdom. 
Even  tax-gatherers  and  surveyors,  if  appointed  by  royal  warrant, 
could  claim  the  rank ;  and  new  offices  were  continually  being  cre- 
ated and  sold  which  conferred  the  same  title.  Those  so  ennobled 
were  not  reckoned  the  equals  of  the  higher  class.  They  could 
not  even  be  received  at  court  until  their  patents  were  four  hun- 
dred years  old,  but  they  had  a  right  to  vote  as  nobles  at  elections 
to  any  representative  body.  Those  whose  patents  were  twenty- 
four  years  old  could  be  elected  as  representatives;  and  from  the 
moment  of  their  creation  they  all  enjoyed  great  exemptions;  so 
that,  as  the  lowest  estimate  reckoned  their  numbers  at  a  hundred 
thousand,  it  is  a  matter  for  some  wonder  how  the  taxes  to  which 
they  did  not  contribute  produced  any  thing  worth  collecting.  It 
was,  of  course,  manifest  that  the  exemptions  enormously  increased 
the  burden  to  be  borne  by  the  classes  which  did  not  enjoy  such 
privileges. 

But,  heavy  as  the  grievance  of  these  exemptions  was,  it  was  as 
nothing  when  compared  with  the  feudal  rights  claimed  by  the 
greater  nobles.  The  peasants  on  their  estates  were  forced  to 
grind  their  corn  at  the  lord's  mill,  to  press  their  grapes  at  his 
wine-press,  paying  for  such  act  whatever  price  he  might  think  fit 
to  exact,  and  often  having  their  crops  wholly  wasted  or  spoiled  by 
the  delays  which  such  a  system  engendered.  The  game-laws  for- 

*  De  Tocqueville  considers  the  feudal  system  in  France  in  many  points 
more  oppressive  than  that  of  Germany. — Ancien  Regime,  p.  43. 


ARBITRARY  POWERS  OF  THE  SOVEREIGN.  243 

bade  them  to  weed  their  fields  lest  they  should  disturb  the  young 
partridges  or  leverets ;  to  manure  the  soil  with  any  thing  which 
might  injure  their  flavor;  or  even  to  mow  or  reap  till  the  grass 
or  corn  was  no  longer  required  as  shelter  for  the  young  coveys. 
Some  of  the  rights  of  seigniory,  as  it  was  called,  were  such  as  can 
hardly  be  mentioned  in  this  more  decorous  age;  some  were  so 
ridiculous  that  it  is  inconceivable  how  their  very  absurdity  had 
not  led  to  their  abolition.  In  the  marshy  districts  of  Brittany, 
one  right  enjoyed  by  the  great  nobles  was  "  the  silence  of  the 
frogs,"*  which,  whenever  the  lady  was  confined,  bound  the  peas- 
ants to  spend  their  days  and  nights  in  beating  the  swamps  with 
long  poles  to  save  her  from  being  disturbed  by  their  inharmonious 
croaking.  And  if  this  or  any  other  feudal  right  was  dispensed 
with,  it  was  only  commuted  for  a  money  payment,  which  was  lit- 
tle less  burdensome. 

The  powers  exercised  by  the  crown  were  more  intolerable  still. 
The  sovereign  was  absolute  master  of  the  liberties  of  his  subjects. 
Without  alleging  the  commission  of  any  crime,  he  could  issue 
warrants — letters  under  seal,  as  they  were  called — which  consign- 
ed the  person  named  in  them  to  imprisonment,  which  was  often 
perpetual.  The  unhappy  prisoner  had  no  power  of  appeal.  No 
judge  could  inquire  into  his  case,  much  less  release  him.  The  ar- 
rests were  often  made  with  such  secrecy  and  rapidity  that  his 
nearest  relations  knew  not  what  had  become  of  him,  but  he  was 
cut  off  from  the  outer  world,  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  as  completely 
as  if  he  had  at  once  been  handed  over  to  the  executioner.! 

It  was  impossible  but  that  such  customs  should  produce  general 

*  Silence  des  grenouilles.  Arthur  Young,  "  Travels  in  France  during  1787, 
'88,  '89,"  p.  537.  It  is  a  singular  proof  how  entirely  research  into  the  condition 
of  the  country  and  the  people  of  France  had  been  neglected  both  by  its  phi- 
losophers and  its  statesmen,  that  there  does  not  seem  to  have  been  any  pub- 
lication in  the  language  which  gave  information  on  these  subjects.  And  this 
work  of  Mr.  Young's  is  the  one  to  which  modern  French  writers,  such  as  M. 
Alexis  de  Tocqueville,  chiefly  refer. 

f  "  The  lettres  de  cachet  were  carried  to  an  excess  hardly  credible ;  to  the 
length  of  being  sold,  with  blanks,  to  be  filled  up  with  names  at  the  pleasure 
of  the  purchaser,  who  was  thus  able,  in  the  gratification  of  private  revenge,  to 
tear  a  man  from  the  bosom  of  his  family,  and  bury  him  in  a  dungeon,  where 
he  would  exist  forgotten  and  die  unknown." — A.  YOCNO,  p.  582.  And  in  a 
note  he  gives  an  instance  of  an  Englishman,  named  Gordon,  who  was  im- 
prisoned in  the  Bastile  for  thirty  years  without  even  knowing  the  reason  of 
his  arrest 


244  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

discontent,  and  a  resolute  demand  for  a  complete  reformation  of 
the  system.  And  one  of  the  problems  which  the  minister  had  to 
determine  was,  how  to  organize  the  States-general  so  that  they 
should  be  disposed  to  promote  such  measures  of  reform  as  should 
be  adequate  without  being  excessive ;  as  should  give  due  protec- 
tion to  the  middle  and  lower  classes  without  depriving  the  no- 
bles of  that  dignity  and  authority  which  were  not  only  desirable 
for  themselves,  but  useful  to  their  dependents ;  and,  lastly,  such  as 
should  carefully  preserve  the  rightful  prerogatives  of  the  crown, 
while  putting  an  end  to  those  arbitrary  powers,  the  existence  of 
which  was  incompatible  with  the  very  name  of  freedom. 

In  making  the  necessary  arrangements,  the  long  disuse  of  the 
Assembly  was  a  circumstance  greatly  in  favor  of  the  Government, 
if  Necke.r  had  had  skill  to  avail  himself  of  it,  since  it  wholly  freed 
him  from  the  obligation  of  being  guided  by  former  precedents. 
Those  arrangements  were  long  and  warmly  debated  in  the  king's 
council.  Though  the  records  of  former  sessions  had  been  so 
carelessly  preserved  that  little  was  known  of  their  proceedings,  it 
seemed  to  be  established  that  the  representatives  of  the  Commons 
had  usually  amounted  to  about  four -tenths  of  the  whole  body, 
those  of  the  clergy  and  of  the  nobles  being  each  about  three- 
tenths  ;  and  that  they  had  almost  invariably  deliberated  and  voted 
in  separate  chambers;  and  the  princes  and  the  chief  nobles  pre- 
sented memorials  to  the  king,  in  which  they  almost  unanimously 
recommended  an  adherence  to  these  ancient  forms;  while,  with 
patriotic  prudence,  they  sought  to  obviate  all  jealousy  of  their 
own  pretensions  or  views  which  might  be  entertained  or  feigned 
in  any  quarter,  by  announcing  their  willingness  to  abandon  all 
the  exclusive  privileges  and  exemptions  which  they  had  hitherto 
possessed,  and  which  were  notoriously  one  chief  cause  of  the  gen- 
erally prevailing  discontent. 

But  the  party  which  had  originated  the  clamor  for  the  States- 
general,  now,  encouraged  by  their  success,  put  forward  two  fresh 
demands ;  the  first,  that  the  number  of  the  representatives  of  the 
Commons  should  equal  that  of  both  the  other  orders  put  togeth- 
er, which  they  called  "  the  duplication  of  the  Third  Estate ;"  the 
second,  that  the  three  orders  should  meet  and  vote  as  one  united 
body  in  one  chamber ;  the  two  propositions  taken  together  being 
manifestly  calculated  and  designed  to  throw  the  whole  power  into 
the  hands  of  the  Commons. 

Necker  had  great  doubts  about  the  propriety  and  safety  of  the 


NECKER  AIMS  AT  POPULARITY.  245 

first  proposal,  and  no  doubt  at  all  of  the  danger  of  the  second. 
His  own  judgment  was  that  the  wisest  plan  would  be  to  order  the 
clergy  and  nobles  to  unite  in  an  Upper  Chamber,  so  as  in  some 
degree  to  resemble  the  British  House  of  Lords ;  while  the  Third 
Estate,  in  a  Lower  Chamber,  would  be  a  tolerably  faithful  copy 
of  our  House  of  Commons.  But  he  could  never  bring  himself 
to  risk  his  popularity  by  opposing  what  he  regarded  as  the  opin- 
ion of  the  masses.  He  was  alarmed  by  the  political  clubs  which 
were  springing  up  in  Paris ;  one,  whose  president  was  the  Due 
d'Orleans,  assuming  the  significant  and  menacing  title  of  Les 
Enrages;*  and  by  the  vast  number  of  pamphlets  which  were  cir- 
culated both  in  the  capital  and  the  chief  towns  of  the  provinces 
by  thousands,!  every  writer  of  which  put  himself  forward  as  a 
legislator,!  and  of  which  the  vast  majority  advocated  what  they 
called  the  rights  of  the  Third  Estate,  in  most  violent  language; 
and,  finally,  he  adopted  the  course  which  is  a  great  favorite  with 
vain  and  weak  men,  and  which  he  probably  represented  to  him- 
self as  a  compromise  between  unqualified  concession  and  unyield- 
ing resistance,  though  every  one  possessed  of  the  slightest  pene- 
tration could  see  that  it  practically  surrendered  both  points:  he 
advised  the  king  to  issue  his  edict  that  the  number  of  representa- 
tives to  be  returned  to  the  States-general  should  be  twelve  hun- 
dred, half  of  whom  were  to  be  returned  by  the  Commons,  a 
quarter  by  the  clergy,  and  a  quarter  by  the  nobles  ;§  and  to  post- 
pone the  decision  as  to  the  number  of  the  chambers  till  the  As- 

*  Arthur  Young,  writing  January  10th,  1790,  identifies  Les  Enrages  with 
the  club  afterward  so  infamous  as  the  Jacobins.  "The  ardent  democrats 
who  have  the  reputation  of  being  so  much  republican  in  principle  that  they 
do  not  admit  any  political  necessity  for  having  even  the  name  of  a  king,  are 
called  the  Enrages.  They  have  a  meeting  at  the  Jacobins',  the  Revolution 
Club  which  assembles  every  night  in  the  very  room  in  which  the  famous 
League  was  formed  in  the  reign  of  Henry  III."  (p.  267). 

f  M.  Droz  asserts  that  a  collector  of  such  publications  bought  two  thou- 
sand five  hundred  in  the  last  three  months  of  1788,  and  that  his  collection 
was  far  from  complete. — Histoire  de  Louis  XVI.,  ii.,  p.  180. 

J  "  Tout  auteur  s'erige  en  Idgislateur." — Memorial  of  the  Princes  to  the  King, 
quoted  in  a  note  to  the  last  chapter  of  Sismondi's  History,  p.  551,  Brussels  ed., 
1849. 

§  In  reality  the  numbers  were  even  more  in  favor  of  the  Commons :  the 
representatives  of  the  clergy  were  three  hundred  and  eight,  and  those  of  the 
nobles  two  hundred  and  eighty-five,  making  only  five  hundred  and  ninety- 
three  of  the  two  superior  orders,  while  the  deputies  of  the  Tiers-  Etat  were  six 
hundred  and  twenty-one. — Souvenirs  de  la  Marquise  de  Crequy,  vii.,  p.  68. 


246  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

sembly  should  meet,  when  he  proposed  to  allow  the  States  them- 
selves to  determine  it ;  trusting,  against  all  probability,  that,  after 
having  thus  given  the  Commons  the  power  to  enforce  their  own 
views,  he  should  be  able  to  persuade  them  to  abandon  the  same 
in  deference  to  his  judgment. 

Louis,  as  a  matter  of  course,  adopted  his  advice ;  and,  after 
several  different  towns — Blois,  Tours,  Cambrai,  and  Compiegne 
among  them — had  been  proposed  as  the  place  of  meeting,  he  him- 
self decided  in  favor  of  Versailles,*  as  that  which  would  afford 
him  the  best  hunting  while  the  session  lasted.  The  queen  in  her 
heart  disapproved  of  every  one  of  these  resolutions.  She  saw 
that  Necker  had,  as  she  had  foreboded,  sacrificed  the  king's  au- 
thority by  his  advice  on  the  two  first  questions ;  and  she  per- 
ceived more  clearly  than  any  one  the  danger  of  fixing  the  States- 
general  so  near  to  Paris  that  the  turbulent  population  of  the  city 
should  be  able  to  overawe  the  members.  She  pressed  these  con- 
siderations earnestly  on  the  king,f  but  it  was  characteristic  of  the 
course  which  she  prescribed  to  herself  from  the  beginning,  and 
from  which  she  never  swerved,  that  when  her  advice  was  over- 
ruled she  invariably  defended  the  course  which  had  been  taken. 
Her  language,  when  any  one  spoke  to  her  either  of  her  own  opin- 
ions and  wishes,  or  of  the  feelings  with  which  the  different  classes 
of  the  nation  regarded  her,  was  invariably  the  same.  "  You  are 
not  to  think  of  me  for  a  moment.  All  that  I  desire  of  you  is  to 
take  care  that  the  respect  which  is  due  to  the  king  shall  not  be 
weakened  ;"J  and  it  was  only  her  most  intimate  friends  who  knew 
how  unwise  she  thought  the  different  decisions  that  had  been 
adopted,  or  how  deep  were  her  forebodings  of  evil. 

*  "  Se  levant  alors, '  Non,'  dit  le  roi,  '  ce  ne  peut  etre  qu'a  Versailles,  a 
cause  des  chasses.'  " — Louis  BLANC,  ii.,  p.  212,  quoting  Barante. 

f  "  La  reine  adopta  ce  dernier  avis  [that  the  States  should  meet  forty  or 
sixty  leagues  from  the  capital],  et  elle  insista  aupres  du  roi  que  Ton  s'eloi- 
gnat  de  I'immense  population  de  Paris.  Elle  craignait  des  lors  que  le  peuple 
n'influei^at  les  delib6rations  des  deputes." — MADAME  DE  CAMPAN,  ch.  83. 

J  Chambrier,  i.,  p.  562. 


THE  REVEILLON  RIOT.  247 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

The  Reveillon  Riot. — Opening  of  the  States-general. — The  Queen  is  insulted 
by  the  Partisans  of  the  Due  d'Orleans. — Discussions  as  to  the  Number  of 
Chambers. — Career  and  Character  of  Mirabeau. — Necker  rejects  his  Sup- 
port— He  determines  to  revenge  himself. — Death  of  the  Dauphin. 

THE  meeting  of  the  States-general,  as  has  been  already  seen, 
was  fixed  for  the  4th  of  May,  1789;  and,  as  if  it  were  fated  that 
the  bloody  character  of  the  period  now  to  be  inaugurated  should 
be  displayed  from  the  very  outset,  the  elections  for  the  city  of 
Paris,  which  were  only  held  in  the  preceding  week,  were  stained 
with  a  riot  so  formidable  as  to  be  commonly  spoken  of  in  the 
records  of  the  time  as  an  insurrection.* 

One  of  the  candidates  for  the  representation  of  the  Third  Es- 
tate was  a  paper-maker  of  the  name  of  Reveillon,  a  man  eminent 
for  his  charity  and  general  liberality,  but  one  who  was  believed  to 
regard  the  views  of  the  extreme  reformers  with  disfavor.  He 
was  so  popular  with  his  own  workmen,  who  were  very  numerous, 
and  with  their  friends,  who  knew  his  character  from  them,  that 
he  was  generally  expected  to  succeed.  The  opposite  party,  who 
had  candidates  of  their  own,  and  had  the  support  of  the  purse  of 
the  Due  d'Orleans,  were  determined  that  he  should  not ;  and  no 
way  seemed  so  sure  as  to  murder  him.  Bands  of  ferocious-look- 
ing ruffians  were  brought  in  from  the  country  districts,  armed 
with  heavy  bludgeons,  and,  as  was  afterward  learned,  well  supplied 
with  money ;  and  on  the  morning  of  the  28th  of  April  news  was 
brought  to  the  Baron  de  Besenval,  the  commander  of  the  Royal 
Guards,  that  a  mob  of  several  thousand  men  had  collected  in  the 
streets,  who  had  read  a  mock  sentence,  professing  to  have  been 
passed  by  the  Third  Estate,  which  condemned  Reveillon  to  be 
hanged,  after  which  they  had  burned  him  in  effigy,  and  then  at- 
tacked his  house,  which  they  were  sacking  and  destroying.  They 
even  ventured  to  attack  the  first  company  of  soldiers  whom  De 
Besenval  sent  to  the  rescue ;  and  it  was  not  till  he  dispatched  a 

*  It  was  called  "  L'insurrection  du  Faubourg  St.  Antoine." 


248  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

battalion  with  a  couple  of  field-pieces  to  the  spot  that  the  plun- 
derers were  expelled  from  the  house  and  the  riot  was  quelled. 
Nearly  five  hundred  of  the  mob  were  killed,  but  when  the  Parlia- 
ment proceeded  to  set  on  foot  a  judicial  inquiry  into  the  cause 
of  the  tumult,  Necker  prevailed  on  the  secretary  of  state  to  sup- 
press the  investigation,  as  he  feared  to  exasperate  D'Orleans  fur- 
ther by  giving  publicity  to  his  machinations,  of  which  he  did  not 
yet  suspect  either  the  extent  or  the  object.* 

A  momentary  tranquillity  was,  however,  restored  at  Paris ;  and 
all  eyes  were  turned  from  the  capital  to  Versailles,  where  the  first 
few  days  of  May  were  devoted  to  the  receptions  of  the  States- 
general  by  the  king  and  queen,  ceremonies  which  might  have 
had  a  good  effect,  since  the  bitterest  adversaries  of  the  court  were 
favorably  impressed  by  the  grace  and  affability  of  the  queen ;  but 
which  many  shrewd  judges  afterward  believed  to  have  had  a  con- 
trary influence,  from  the  offense  taken  by  the  representatives  of 
the  Commons  at  some  of  the  details  of  the  ancient  etiquette,  which 
on  so  solemn  an  occasion  was  revived  in  all  its  stately  strictness. 
The  dignitaries  of  the  Church  wore  their  most  sumptuous  robes. 
The  Nobles  glittered  with  silk  and  gold  lace ;  jeweled  clasps  fast- 
ened plumes  of  feathers  in  their  hats;  orders  glittered  on  their 
breasts ;  and  many  a  precious  stone  sparkled  in  the  hilts  of  their 
swords.  The  representatives  of  the  Commons  were  allowed  nei- 
ther feathers,  nor  embroidery,  nor  swords ;  but  were  forced  to 
content  themselves  with  plain  black  cloaks,  and  an  unadorned 
homeliness  of  attire,  which  seemed  as  if  intended  to  exclude  all 
idea  of  their  being  the  equals  of  those  other  orders  of  which  they 
had  for  a  moment  become  the  colleagues.  And,  in  a  similar  spir- 
it it  was  arranged  that,  after  the  folding-doors  of  the  saloon  in 
which  the  sovereigns  were  awaiting  them  were  thrown  wide  open 
to  admit  the  representatives  of  the  higher  orders,  the  Commons 
were  let  in  through  a  side  door.  And  though  in  the  eyes  of  per- 
sons habituated  to  the  ceremonious  niceties  of  court  life  these 
distinctions  seemed  matters  of  course,  and,  as  such,  unworthy  of 
notice,  it  can  hardly  be  wondered  at  if  they  were  galling  to  men 
accustomed  only  to  the  simpler  manners  of  a  provincial  town; 
and  who,  proud  of  their  new  position  and  deeply  impressed  with 
its  importance,  fancied  they  saw  in  them  a  settled  intention  to  de- 

*  The  best  account  of  this  riot  is  to  be  found  in  Dr.  Moore's  "  Views  of  the 
Causes  and  Progress  of  the  French  Revolution,"  i.,  p.  139. 


OPENING   OF  THE  STATES-  GENERAL.  249 

grade  both  them  and  their  constituents  by  thus  stamping  them 
with  a  badge  of  inferiority  before  all  the  spectators. 

The  opening  of  the  States  -  general  was  fixed  for  the  5th  of 
May,  and  on  the  day  before,  which  was  Sunday,  a  solemn  mass 
was  performed  at  the  principal  church  in  Versailles,  that  of  Notre 
Dame ;  after  which  the  congregation  proceeded  to  another  church, 
that  of  St.  Louis,  to  hear  a  sermon  from  the  Bishop  of  Nancy. 
It  was  a  stately  procession  that  moved  from  one  church  to  the 
other,  and  it  was  afterward  remembered  as  the  very  last  in  which 
the  royal  pair  appeared  before  their  subjects  with  the  undimin- 
ished  magnificence  of  ancient  ceremony.  First,  after  a  splendid 
escort  of  troops,  came  the  members  of  the  States  in  their  several 
orders ;  then  the  king  marched  by  himself ;  the  queen  followed ; 
and  behind  her  came  the  princes  and  princesses  of  the  royal  family 
of  the  blood,  the  officers  of  state  and  of  the  household,  and  com- 
panies of  the  Body-guard  brought  up  the  rear.  The  accla- 
mations of  the  spectators  were  loud  as  the  deputies  of  the  States, 
and  especially  as  the  representatives  of  the  Commons,  passed 
on ;  loud,  too,  as  the  king  moved  forward,  bearing  himself  with 
unusual  dignity ;  but,  when  the  queen  advanced,  though  still  the 
main  body  of  the  people  cheered  with  sincere  respect,  a  gang  of 
ruffians,  among  whom  were  several  women,*  shouted  out  "  Long 
live  the  Duke  of  Orleans!"  in  her  ear,  with  so  menacing  an  ac- 
cent that  she  nearly  fainted  with  terror.  By  a  strong  mastery 
over  herself  she  shook  off  the  agitation,  which  was  only  perceived 
by  her  immediate  attendants ;  but  the  disloyal  feeling  thus  shown 
toward  her  at  the  outset  was  a  sad  omen  of  the  spirit  in  which  one 
party  at  least  was  prepared  to  view  the  measures  of  the  Government; 
and,  so  far  as  she  was  concerned,  of  the  degree  in  which  her  enemies 
had  succeeded  in  poisoning  the  minds  of  the  people  against  her,  as 
the  person  whose  resistance  to  their  meditated  encroachments  on 
the  royal  authority  was  likely  to  prove  the  most  formidable. 

It  was  a  significant.,  hint,  too,  of  the  projects  already  formed 
by  the  worthless  prince  whose  adherents  these  ruffians  proclaimed 
themselves.  The  Due  d'Orleans  conceived  himself  to  have  lately 
received  a  fresh  provocation,  and  an  additional  motive  for  revenge. 
His  eldest  son,  the  Due  de  Chartres,f  was  now  a  boy  of  sixteen, 


*  Madame  de  Campan  specially  remarks  that  the  disloyal  cry  of  "  Vive  le 
Due  d'Orleans"  came  from  "les  femmes  du  peuple"  (ch.  xiii.). 
f  Afterward  Louis  Philippe,  King  of  the  French. 


250  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

and  he  had  proposed  to  the  king  to  give  him  Madame  Royale  in 
marriage ;  an  idea  which  the  queen,  who  held  his  character  in  de- 
served abhorrence,  had  rejected  with  very  decided  marks  of  dis- 
pleasure. He  was  also  stimulated  by  views  of  personal  ambition. 
The  history  of  England  had  been  recently  studied  by  many  per- 
sons in  France  besides  the  king  and  queen ;  and  there  were  not 
wanting  advisers  to  point  out  to  the  duke  that  the  revolution 
which  had  taken  place  in  England  exactly  a  century  before  had 
owed  its  success  to  the  dethronement  of  the  reigning  sovereign 
and  the  substitution  of  another  member  of  the  royal  family  in  his 
place.  As  William  of  Orange  was,  after  the  king's  own  children, 
the  next  heir  to  James  II.,  so  was  the  Due  d'Orleans  now  the  next 
heir,  after  the  king's  children  and  brothers,  to  Louis  XVI. ;  and  for 
the  next  five  months  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  and  his  partisans, 
who  numbered  in  their  body  some  of  the  most  influential  members 
of  the  States-general,  kept  constantly  in  view  the  hope  of  placing 
him  on  the  throne  from  which  they  were  to  depose  his  cousin. 

The  next  day  the  States  were  formally  opened  by  Louis  in  per- 
son. The  place  of  meeting  was  a  spacious  hall  which,  two  years 
before,  had  been  used  for  the  meeting  of  the  Notables.  It  had 
been  the  scene  of  many  a  splendid  spectacle  in  times  past,  but 
had  never  before  witnessed  so  imposing  or  momentous  a  cere- 
mony. The  town  itself  had  not  risen  into  notice  till  the  memo- 
ry of  the  preceding  States-general  had  almost  passed  away.  And. 
now,  after  all  the  deputies  had  ranged  themselves  to  receive  their 
sovereign,  the  representatives  of  the  clergy  on  the  right  of  the 
throne,  the  Nobles  on  the  left,  the  Commons  in  denser  masses  at 
the  bottom  of  the  hall  ;*  as  the  king,  accompanied  by  the  queen, 
leading  two  of  her  childrenf  by  the  hand,  and  attended  by  all  the 
princes  of  the  royal  family  and  of  the  blood,  by  the  dukes  and 
peers  of  the  kingdom,  the  ministers  and  great  officers  of  state, 
entered  and  took  his  seat  on  the  throne,  the  most  unimpassioned 
spectator  must  have  felt  that  he  was  beholding  a  scene  at  once 
magnificent  and  solemn ;  and  one,  from  long  desuetude,  as  novel 
as  if  it  had  been  wholly  unprecedented,  such  as  might  well  in- 
augurate a  new  policy  or  a  new  constitution. 

*  "  View  of  the  Causes  and  Progress  of  the  French  Revolution,"  by  Dr. 
Moore,  i.,  p.  144. 

f  The  dauphin  was  too  ill  to  be  present.  The  children  were  Madame 
Royale  and  the  Due  de  Normandie,  who  became  dauphin  the  next  month  by 
the  death  of  his  elder  brother. 


THE  COMMONS  ASSERT  THEIR  EQUALITY.  251 

Could  those  who  beheld  it  as  spectators,  could  those  who  bore 
a  part  in  the  solemnity,  have  looked  into  futurity ;  could  they 
have  divined  that  no  other  hall  would  ever  again  see  that  virtuous 
and  beneficent  king  surrounded  with  that  pomp,  or  received  with 
that  reverential  homage  which  was  now  paid  to  him  as  his  un- 
questioned right;  nay,  that  the  end,  of  which  this  day  was  the 
beginning,  scarcely  one  single  person  of  all  those  now  present, 
whether  men  in  the  flower  of  their  strength,  women  in  the  pride 
of  their  beauty,  or  even  children  in  their  infantine  innocence  and 
grace,  would  live  to  behold;  but  that  sovereigns  and  subjects 
were  destined,  almost  without  exception,  to  perish  with  circum- 
stances of  unutterable,  unimaginable  horror  and  misery,  as  the  di- 
rect consequence  of  this  day's  pageant ;  we  may  well  believe  that 
the  most  sanguine  of  those  who  now  greeted  it  with  eager  hope 
and  exultation  would  rather  have  averted  his  eyes  from  the  ill- 
omened  spectacle,  and  would  have  preferred  to  bear  the  worst 
evils  of  which  he  was  anticipating  the  abolition,  to  bringing  on 
his  country  the  calamities  which  were  about  to  fall  upon  it. 

A  large  state  arm-chair,  a  little  lower  than  the  throne,  had  been 
set  beside  it  for  the  queen ;  the  princes  and  princesses  were 
ranged  on  each  side  on  a  row  of  chairs  without  arms ;  and,  when 
all  had  taken  their  places,  the  king  opened  the  session  with  a  short 
speech,  leaving  the  real  business  to  be  unfolded  at  greater  length 
by  his  ministers.  In  order  to  feel  assured  of  the  proper  empha- 
sis and  expression,  he  had  rehearsed  his  speech  frequently  to  the 
queen ;  and,  as  he  now  delivered  it  with  unusual  dignity  and 
gracefulness,  it  was  received  with  frequent  acclamations,  though 
some  of  those  who  were  watching  all  that  passed  with  the  great- 
est anxiety  fancied  that  one  or  two  compliments  to  the  queen 
which  it  contained  met  with  a  colder  response ;  while,  at  its  close, 
the  representatives  of  the  Third  Estate  gave  an  indication  of  their 
feeling  toward  the  other  orders,  and  provoked  a  display  on  their 
part  which  promised  little  cordiality  to  their  deliberations.  The 
king,  who  had  uncovered  himself  while  speaking,  on  resuming  his 
seat  replaced  his  hat.  The  Nobles,  according  to  the  ancient  eti- 
quette, replaced  theirs ;  and  many  of  the  Commons  at  once  as- 
serted their  equality  with  them  by  also  covering  themselves. 
Such  an  assumption  was  a  breach  of  all  established  custom.  The 
Nobles  were  indignant,  and  with  angry  shouts  demanded  the  re- 
moval of  the  Commons'  hats.  They  were  met  with  louder  clamor 
by  the  Commons,  and  in  a  moment  the  whole  hall  was  in  an  up- 


252  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

roar,  which  was  only  allayed  by  the  presence  of  mind  of  Louis 
himself,  who,  as  if  oppressed  by  the  heat,  laid  aside  his  own  hat, 
when,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  Nobles  followed  his  example. 
The  deputies  of  the  Commons  did  the  same,  and  peace  was  re- 
stored. 

The  king's  speech  was  followed  by  another  short  one  from  the 
keeper  of  the  seals,  which  received  but  little  attention ;  and  by 
one  of  prodigious  length  from  Necker,  which  was  equally  inju- 
dicious and  unacceptable  to  his  hearers,  both  in  what  it  said  and 
in  what  it  omitted.  He  never  mentioned  the  question  of  consti- 
tutional reform.  He  said  nothing  of  what  the  Commons,  at  least, 
thought  still  more  important — the  number  of  chambers  in  which 
the  members  were  to  meet;  and,  though  he  dilated  at  the  most 
profuse  length  on  the  condition  of  the  finances,  and  on  his  own 
success  in  re-establishing  public  credit,  they  were  by  no  means 
pleased  to  hear  him  assert  that  that  success  had  removed  any  ab- 
solute necessity  for  their  meeting  at  all,  and  that  they  had  only 
been  called  together  in  fulfillment  of  the  king's  promise,  that  so 
the  sovereign  might  establish  a  better  harmony  between  the  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  Constitution. 

Before  any  business  could  be  proceeded  with,  it  was  necessary 
for  the  members  to  have  the  writs  of  their  elections  properly  cer- 
tified and  registered,  for  which  they  were  to  meet  on  the  follow- 
ing day.  We  need  not  here  detail  the  artifices  and  assumptions 
by  which  the  members  of  the  Third  Estate  put  forward  preten- 
sions which  were  designed  to  make  them  masters  of  the  whole 
Assembly ;  nor  is  it  necessary  to  unfold  at  length  the  combina- 
tion of  audacity  and  craft,  aided  by  the  culpable  weakness  of 
Necker,  by  which  they  ultimately  carried  the  point  they  contend- 
ed for,  providing  that  the  three  orders  should  deliberate  and  vote 
together  as  one  united  body  in  one  chamber.  Emboldened  by 
their  success,  they  even  proceeded  to  a  step  which  probably  not 
one  among  them  had  originally  contemplated ;  and,  as  if  one  of 
their  principal  objects  had  been  to  disown  the  authority  of  the 
king  by  which  they  had  been  called  together,  they  repudiated  the 
title  of  States-general,  and  invented  for  themselves  a  new  name, 
that  of  "  The  National  Assembly,"  which,  as  it  had  never  been 
heard  of  before,  seemed  to  mark  that  they  owed  their  existence 
to  the  nation,  and  not  to  the  sovereign. 

But  the  discussions  that  took  place  before  all  these  points  were 
settled,  presented,  besides  the  importance  of  the  conclusion  which 


THE  COUNT  DE  MIRABEAU.  253 

was  adopted,  another  feature  of  powerful  interest,  since  it  was  in 
them  that  the  members  first  heard  the  voice  of  the  Count  de  Mi- 
rabeau,  who,  more  than  any  other  deputy,  was  supposed  during 
the  ensuing  year  to  be  able  to  sway  the  whole  Assembly,  and  to 
hold  the  destinies  of  the  nation  in  his  hands. 

Necker's  daughter,  the  celebrated  Baroness  de  Stae'l,  wife  of  the 
Swedish  embassador,  who  was  present  at  the  opening  of  the  States, 
which,  as  her  father's  daughter,  she  regarded  with  exulting  confi- 
dence as  the  body  of  legislators  who  were  to  regenerate  the  na- 
tion, remarked,  as  the  long  procession  passed  before  her  eyes,  that 
of  the  six  hundred  deputies  of  the  Commons,*  the  Count  de  Mi- 
rabeau  alone  bore  a  name  which  was  previously  known ;  and  he 
was  manifestly  out  of  his  place  as  a  representative  of  the  Com- 
mons. His  history  was  a  strange  one.  He  was  the  eldest  son  of  a 
Provensal  noble,  of  Italian  origin,  great  wealth,  and  a  ferocious  ec- 
centricity of  character,  which  made  him  one  of  the  worst  possible 
instructors  for  a  youth  of  brilliant  talents,  unbridled  passions,  and 
a  disposition  equally  impetuous  in  its  pursuit  of  good  and  of  evil. 
Even  before  he  arrived  at  manhood  he  had  become  notorious  for 
every  kind  of  profligacy ;  while  his  father,  in  an  almost  equal  de- 
gree, provoked  the  censure  of  those  who  interested  themselves  in 
the  career  of  a  youth  of  undeniable  ability,  by  punishments  of 
such  severity  as  wore  the  appearance  of  vengeance  rather  than  of 
fatherly  correction.  In  six  or  seven  years  he  obtained  no  fewer 
than  fifteen  warrants,  or  letters  under  seal,  for  the  imprisonment 
of  his  son  in  different  jails  or  fortresses,  while  the  young  man 
seemed  to  take  a  wanton  pleasure  in  showing  how  completely  all 
efforts  for  his  reformation  were  thrown  away.  Though  unusually 
ugly  (he  himself  compared  his  face  to  that  of  a  tiger  who  had  had 
the  small-pox),  he  was  irresistible  among  women.  While  one  of 
the  youngest  subalterns  in  the  army,  he  made  love,  rarely  with- 
out success,  to  the  mistresses  or  wives  of  his  superior  officers,  and 
fought  duel  after  duel  with  those  who  took  offense  at  his  gallant- 
ries. From  one  castle  in  which  he  was  imprisoned  he  was  aided 
to  escape  by  the  wife  of  an  officer  of  the  garrison,  who  accompa- 
nied his  flight.  From  another  he  was  delivered  by  the  love  of  a 
lady  of  the  highest  rank,  the  Marchioness  de  Monnier,  whom  he 
had  met  at  the  governor's  table. 

*  "Aucun  nom  propre,  except^  le  sien,  n'etait  encore  c61ebre  dans  lea  six 
cents  d6put6s  du  Tiers." — Considerations  sur  la  Revolution  Franfaise,  pp.  186, 

187. 


254  LIFE  OF  MARTS  ANTOINETTE. 

When,  after  some  years  of  misery,  the  marchioness  terminated 
them  by  suicide,  he  seduced  a  nun  of  exquisite  beauty  to  leave 
her  convent  for  his  sake ;  and  as  France  was  no  longer  a  safe  res- 
idence for  them,  he  fled  to  Frederick  of  Prussia,  who,  equally  glad 
to  welcome  him  as  a  Frenchman,  a  genius,  and  a  profligate,  re- 
ceived him  for  a  while  into  high  favor.  But  he  was  penniless ; 
and  Frederick  was  never  liberal  of  his  money.  Debt  soon  drove 
him  from  Prussia,  and  he  retired  to  England,  where  he  made  ac- 
quaintance with  Fox,  Fitzpatrick,  and  other  men  of  mark  in  the 
political  circles  of  the  day.  He  was  at  all  times  and  amidst  all 
his  excesses  both  observant  and  studious  ;  and  while  witnessing  in 
person  the  strife  of  parties  in  this  country,  he  learned  to  appreci- 
ate the  excellencies  of  our  Constitution,  both  in  its  theory  and  in 
its  practical  working.  But  presently  debt  drove  him  from  Lon- 
don as  it  had  driven  him  from  Berlin ;  and,  after  taking  refuge 
for  a  short  time  in  Holland  and  Switzerland,  he  was  hesitating 
whither  next  to  betake  himself,  when,  hearing  of  the  elections  for 
the  States  -  general,  he  resolved  to  offer  himself  as  a  candidate ; 
and  returned  to  Provence  to  seek  the  suffrages  of  the  Nobles  of 
his  own  county. 

Unluckily,  his  character  was  too  well  known  in  his  native  dis- 
trict ;  and  the  Nobles,  unwilling  to  countenance  the  ambition  of 
one  who  had  obtained  so  evil  a  notoriety,  rejected  him.  Full  of 
indignation,  he  turned  to  the  Third  Estate,  offering  himself  as  a 
representative  of  the  Commons.  In  his  speeches  to  the  citizens 
of  Aix  and  Marseilles — for  he  canvassed  both  towns — he  inveigh- 
ed against  Necker  and  the  Government  with  an  eloquence  which 
electrified  his  audience,  who  had  never  before  been  addressed  in 
the  language  of  independence.  He  was  returned  for  both  towns, 
and  hastened  to  Versailles,  eager  to  avenge  on  the  Nobles,  the  body 
which,  as  he  felt,  he  had  a  right  to  have  represented,  the  affront 
which  had  driven  him,  against  his  will,  to  seek  the  votes  of  a  class 
with  which  he  had  scarcely  a  feeling  in  common  ;  for  in  the  whole 
Assembly  there  was  no  man  less  of  a  democrat  in  his  heart,  or 
prouder  of  his  ancestry  and  aristocratic  privileges. 

He  differed  from  most  of  his  colleagues,  inasmuch  as  he,  from 
the  first,  had  distinct  views  of  the  policy  desirable  for  the  nation, 
which  he  conceived  to  be  the  establishment  of  a  limited  constitu- 
tional monarchy,  such  as  he  had  seen  in  England.*  But  no  man 

*  In  the  first  weeks  of  the  session  he  told  the  Count  de  la  Marck,  "  On  ne 


VIEWS  OF  MIRABEAU.  255 

in  the  whole  Assembly  was  more  inconsistent,  as  he  was  ever  chang- 
ing his  views,  or  at  least  his  conduct  and  language,  at  the  dictates 
of  interest  or  wounded  pride ;  sometimes,  as  it  might  seem,  in  the 
mere  wantonness  of  genius,  as  if  he  wished  to  show  that  he  could 
lead  the  Assembly  with  equal  ease  to  take  a  course,  or  to  retrace  its 
steps — that  it  rested  with  him  alone  alike  to  do  or  to  undo.  The 
only  object  from  which  he  never  departed  was  that  of  making  all 
parties  feel  and  bow  to  his  influence.  And  it  is  this  very  inconsist- 
ency which  so  especially  connects  his  career  for  the  rest  of  his  life 
with  the  fortunes  of  the  queen,  since,  while  he  misunderstood  her 
character,  and  feared  her  power  with  the  king  and  ministers  as  like- 
ly to  be  exerted  in  opposition  to  his  own  views,  he  was  the  most 
ferocious  and  most  foul  of  her  enemies :  when  he  saw  that  she  was 
willing  to  accept  his  aid,  and  when  he  therefore  began  to  conceive  a 
hope  of  making  her  useful  to  himself  in  the  prosecution  of  his  de- 
signs, no  man  was  louder  in  her  praise,  nor,  it  must  be  admitted, 
more  energetic  or  more  judicious  in  the  advice  which  he  gave  her. 
His  language  on  the  first  occasion  on  which  he  made  his  voice 
heard  in  the  Assembly  was  eminently  characteristic  of  him,  so 
manifestly  was  it  directed  to  the  attainment  of  his  own  object — 
that  of  making  himself  necessary  to  the  court,  and  obtaining  ei- 
ther office  or  some  pension  which  might  enable  him  to  live,  since 
his  own  resources  had  long  been  exhausted  by  his  extravagance. 
D'Espresmenil  had  strongly  advocated  the  doctrine  that  the  meet- 
ing of  the  three  orders  in  separate  chambers  was  a  fundamental 
principle  of  the  monarchy ;  and  Mirabeau,  in  opposition  to  him, 
moved  an  address  to  the  king,  which  represented  the  Third  Estate 
as  desirous  to  ally  itself  with  the  throne,  so  as  to  enable  it  to  re- 
sist the  pretensions  of  the  clergy  and  the  nobles;  and,  as  this 
speech  of  his  produced  no  overture  from  the  minister,  in  the  mid- 
dle of  June  he  made  a  direct  offer  to  Necker  to  support  the  Gov- 
ernment, if  Necker  had  any  plan  at  all  which  was  in  the  least 
reasonable  ;*  and  he  gave  proof  of  his  sincerity  by  vigorously  op- 

sortira  plus  de  la  sans  un  gouvernement  plus  ou  moins  semblable  a  celui  d'An- 
gleterre." — Correspondance  entre  le  Comte  de  Mirabeau  et  le  Comte  de  la  Marck, 
L,p.6Y. 

*  He  employed  M.  Malouet,  a  very  influential  member  of  the  Assembly,  as 
his  agent  to  open  his  views  to  Necker,  saying  to  him,  "  Je  m'adresse  done  & 
votre  probite.  Vous  etes  H6  avec  MM.  Necker  et  de  Montmorin,  vous  devez 
savoir  ce  qu'ils  veulent,  et  s'ils  ont  un  plan ;  si  ce  plan  est  raisonnable  je  le 
defendrai." — Correspondance  de  Mirabeau  et  La  Marck,  i.,  p.  219. 


256  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

posing  some  proposals  of  the  extreme  reformers.  But,  with  in- 
credible folly,  Necker  rejected  his  support,  treating  his  arguments 
to  his  face  as  insignificant,  and  affirming  that  their  views  were  ir- 
reconcilable, since  Mirabeau  wished  to  govern  by  policy,  while  he 
himself  preferred  morality. 

He  at  once  resolved  to  revenge  himself  on  the  minister  who 
had  thus  slighted  him,*  and  he  was  not  long  in  finding  an  oppor- 
tunity. On  the  23d  of  June,  after  the  States  had  assumed  their 
new  form,  and  Louis  at  a  royal  sitting  had  announced  the  reforms 
he  had  resolved  to  grant,  and  which  were  so  complete  that  the 
most  extreme  reformers  admitted  that  they  could  have  wished  for 
nothing  more,  except  that  they  should  themselves  have  taken 
them,  and  that  the  king  should  not  have  given  them,  Mirabeau 
took  the  lead  in  throwing  down  a  defiance  to  his  sovereign ;  re- 
fusing to  consent  to  the  adjournment  of  the  Assembly,  as  was 
natural  on  the  withdrawal  of  the  king,  and  declaring  that  they, 
the  members  of  the  Commons,  would  not  quit  the  hall  unless 
they  were  expelled  by  bayonets. 

But,  violently  as  Versailles  and  Paris  were  agitated  throughout 
May  and  June,  Marie  Antoinette  took  no  part  in  the  discussion 
which  these  questions  excited.  She  had  a  still  graver  trouble  at 
home.  Her  eldest  son,  the  dauphin,  whose  birth  had  been  greet- 
ed so  enthusiastically  by  all  classes,  had,  as  we  have  seen,  long 
been  sickly.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  year  his  health  had  been 
growing  worse,  and  on  the  4th  of  June  he  died ;  and,  though  his 
bereaved  mother  bore  up  bravely  under  his  loss,  she  felt  it  deep- 
ly, and  for  a  time  was  almost  incapacitated  from  turning  her  at- 
tention to  any  other  subject. 

*  There  is  some  uncertainty  about  Mirabeau's  motives  and  connections  at 
this  time.  M.  de  Bacourt,  the  very  diligent  and  judicious  editor  of  that  cor- 
respondence with  De  la  Marck  which  has  been  already  quoted,  denies  that 
Mirabeau  ever  received  money  from  the  Due  d'Orleans,  or  that  he  had  any 
connection  with  his  party  or  his  views.  The  evidence  on  the  other  side  seems 
much  stronger,  and  some  of  the  statements  of  the  Comte  de  la  Marck  con- 
tained in  that  volume  go  to  exculpate  Mirabeau  from  all  complicity  in  the  at- 
tack on  Versailles  on  the  9th  of  October,  which  seems  established  by  abun- 
dant testimony. 


MARSHAL  DE  BROGLIR  257 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Troops  are  brought  up  from  the  Frontier. — The  Assembly  petitions  the  King 
to  withdraw  them.  —  He  refuses.  —  He  dismisses  Necker.  —  The  Baron  de 
Breteuil  is  appointed  Prime  Minister.  —  Terrible  Riots  in  Paris.  —  The  Tri- 
color Flag  is  adopted. — Storming  of  the  Bastile  and  Murder  of  the  Gov- 
ernor.— The  Count  d'Artois  and  other  Princes  fly  from  the  Kingdom. — The 
King  recalls  Necker. — Withdraws  the  Soldiers  and  visits  Paris. — Forma- 
tion of  the  National  Guard. — Insolence  of  La  Fayette  and  Bailly. — Madame 
de  Tourzel  becomes  Governess  of  the  Royal  Children. — Letters  of  Marie 
Antoinette  on  their  Character,  and  on  her  own  Views  of  Education. 

BUT  even  so  solemn  a  grief  as  that  for  a  dead  child  she  was 
not  suffered  to  indulge  long.  Even  for  such  a  purpose  royalty  is 
not  always  allowed  the  respite  which  would  be  conceded  to  those 
in  a  more  moderate  station ;  and  affairs  in  Paris  began  to  assume 
so  menacing  a  character  that  she  was  forced  to  rouse  herself  to 
support  her  husband.  Demagogues  in  Paris  excited  the  lower 
classes  of  the  citizens  to  formidable  tumults.  The  troops  were 
tampered  with ;  they  mutinied ;  and  when  the  Assembly  so  vio- 
lated its  duty  as  to  take  the  mutineers  under  its  protection,  and 
to  intercede  with  the  king  for  their  pardon,  Louis,  or,  as  we  should 
probably  say,  Necker,  did  not  venture  to  refuse,  though  it  was 
plain  that  the  condign  punishment  of  such  an  offense  was  indis- 
pensable to  the  maintenance  of  discipline  for  the  future.  And 
Louis  felt  the  humiliation  so  deeply  that  some  of  those  about  him, 
the  Count  d'Artois  taking  the  lead  in  that  party,  were  able  to  in- 
duce him  to  bring  up  from  the  frontier  some  German  and  Swiss 
regiments,  which,  as  not  having  been  exposed  to  the  contagion  of 
the  capital,  were  free  from  the  prevailing  taint  of  disloyalty.  But 
Louis  was  incapable  of  carrying  out  any  plan  resolutely.  He  se- 
lected the  commander  with  judgment,  placing  the  troops  under 
the  orders  of  a  veteran  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  the  old  Marshal 
de  Broglie,  who,  though  more  than  seventy  years  of  age,  gladly 
brought  once  more  his  tried  skill  and  valor  to  the  service  of  his 
sovereign.  But  the  king,  even  while  intrusting  him  with  this 
command,  disarmed  him  at  the  same  moment  by  a  strict  order  to 
avoid  all  bloodshed  and  violence ;  though  nothing  could  be  more 

17 


258  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

obvious  than  that  such  outbreaks  as  the  marshal  was  likely  to  be 
called  on  to  suppress  could  not  be  quelled  by  gentle  means. 

The  Orleanists  and  Mirabeau  probably  knew  nothing  of  this 
humane  or  rather  pusillanimous  order,  though  most  of  the  se- 
crets of  the  court  were  betrayed  to  them  ;  but  Mirabeau  saw  in 
the  arrival  of  the  soldiers  a  fresh  opportunity  of  making  the  king 
feel  the  folly  of  the  minister  in  rejecting  his  advances ;  and  in  a 
speech  of  unusual  power  he  thundered  against  those  who  had 
advised  the  bringing-up  of  troops,  as  he  declared,  to  overawe  the 
Assembly ;  though,  in  fact,  nothing  but  their  presence  and  active 
exertions  could  prevent  the  Assembly  from  being  overawed  by 
the  mob.  But,  undoubtedly,  at  this  time  his  own  first  object  was 
to  use  the  populace  of  Paris  to  terrify  the  members  into  obedi- 
ence to  himself.  In  one  of  his  ends  he  succeeded ;  he  drove 
Necker  from  office.  He  carried  the  address  which  he  proposed, 
to  entreat  the  king  to  withdraw  the  troops ;  but  Louis  had  for 
the  moment  resolved  on  adopting  bolder  counsels  than  those  of 
Necker.  He  declined  to  comply  with  the  petition,  declaring  that 
it  was  his  duty  to  keep  in  Paris  a  force  sufficient  to  preserve  the 
public  tranquillity,  though,  if  the  Assembly  were  disquieted  by 
their  neighborhood,  he  expressed  his  unwillingness  to  remove 
their  session  to  some  more  distant  town.  And  at  the  same  time 
he  dismissed  Necker  from  office,  banishing  him  from  France,  but 
ordering  him  to  keep  his  departure  secret. 

The  queen  had  evidently  had  great  influence  in  bringing  him 
to  this  decision ;  but  how  cordially  she  approved  of  all  the  con- 
cessions which  the  king  had  already  made,  and  how  clearly  she 
saw  that  more  still  remained  to  be  done  before  the  necessary  ref- 
ormation could  be  pronounced  complete,  the  letter  which  on  the 
evening  of  Necker's  dismissal  she  wrote  to  Madame  de  Polignac 
convincingly  proves.  She  had  high  ideas  of  the  authority  which 
a  king  was  legitimately  entitled  to  exercise ;  and  to  what  she  re- 
garded as  undue  restrictions  on  it,  injurious  to  his  dignity,  she 
would  never  consent.  She  probably  regarded  them  as  abstract 
questions  which  had  but  little  bearing  on  the  substantial  welfare 
of  the  people  in  general ;  but  of  all  measures  to  increase  the  hap- 
piness of  all  classes,  even  of  the  very  lowest,  she  was  throughout 
the  warmest  advocate. 

"July  llth,  1789. 

"  I  can  not  sleep,  my  dear  heart,  without  letting  you  know  that 
M.  Necker  is  gone.  MM.  de  Breteuil  and  de  la  Vauguyon  will 


MADAME  ROLAND   URGING  SECRET  ASSASSINATION.    259 

be  summoned  to  the  council  to-morrow.  God  grant  that  we  may 
at  last  be  able  to  do  all  the  good  with  which  we  are  wholly  oc- 
cupied. The  moment  will  be  terrible ;  but  I  have  courage,  and, 
provided  that  the  honest  folks  support  us  without  exposing  them- 
selves needlessly,  I  think  that  I  have  vigor  enough  in  myself  to 
impart  some  to  others.  But  it  is  more  than  ever  necessary  to 
bear  in  mind  that  all  classes  of  men,  so  long  as  they  are  honest, 
are  equally  our  subjects,  and  to  know  how  to  distinguish  those 
who  are  right-thinking  in  every  district  and  in  every  rank.  My 
God !  if  people  could  only  believe  that  these  are  my  real  thoughts, 
perhaps  they  would  love  me  a  little.  But  I  must  not  think  of 
myself.  The  glory  of  the  king,  that  of  his  son,  and  the  happi- 
ness of  this  ungrateful  nation,  are  all  that  I  can,  all  that  I  ought 
to,  wish  for ;  for  as  for  your  friendship,  my  dear  heart,  I  reckon 

on  that  always " 

Such  language  and  sentiments  were  worthy  of  a  sovereign. 
That  the  feelings  here  expressed  were  genuine  and  sincere,  the 
whole  life  of  the  writer  is  a  standing  proof ;  and  yet  already 
fierce,  wicked  spirits,  even  of  women  (for  never  was  it  more  clear- 
ly seen  than  in  France  at  this  time  how  far,  when  women  are 
cruel,  they  exceed  the  worst  of  men  in  ferocity),  were  thirsting 
for  her  blood.  Already  a  woman  in  education  and  ability  far 
above  the  lowest  class,  one  whose  energy  afterward  raised  her  to 
be,  if  not  the  avowed  head,  at  least  the  moving  spirit,  of  a  nu- 
merous party  (Madame  Roland),  was  urging  the  public  prosecution, 
or,  if  the  nation  were  not  ripe  for  such  a  formal  outrage,  the  se- 
cret assassination,  of  both  king  and  queen.*  But,  however  benev- 
olent and  patriotic  were  the  queen's  intentions,  it  became  instant- 
ly evident  that  those  who  had  counseled  the  dismissal  of  Necker 
had  given  their  advice  in  entire  ignorance  of  the  hold  which  he 
had  established  on  the  affections  of  the  Parisians  ;  while  the  new 
prime  minister,  the  Baron  de  Breteuil,  whose  previous  office  had 
connected  him  with  the  police,  was,  on  that  account,  very  unpop- 
ular with  a  class  which  is  very  numerous  in  all  large  cities.  The 
populace  of  Paris  broke  out  at  once  in  riots  which  amounted  to 
insurrection.  Thousands  of  citizens,  not  all  of  the  lowest  class, 
decorated  with  green  cockades,  the  color  of  Necker's  livery,  and 

*  A  letter  of  Madame  Roland  dated  the  26th  of  this  very  month,  July,  1789, 
declares  that  the  people  "  are  undone  if  the  National  Assembly  does  not  pro- 
ceed seriously  and  regularly  to  the  trial  of  the  illustrious  heads  [the  king  and 
queen],  or  if  some  generous  Decius  does  not  risk  his  life  to  take  theirs." 


260  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

armed  with  every  variety  of  weapon,  paraded  the  streets,  bearing 
aloft  busts  of  Necker  and  the  Due  d'Orleans,  without  stopping, 
in  their  madness,  to  consider  how  incongruous  a  combination 
they  were  presenting.  The  most  ridiculous  stories  were  circu- 
lated about  the  queen :  it  was  affirmed  that  she  had  caused  the 
Hall  of  the  Assembly  to  be  undermined,  that  she  might  blow  it 
up  with  gunpowder  ;*  and,  by  way  of  averting  or  avenging  so 
atrocious  an  act,  the  mob  began  to  set  fire  to  houses  in  different 
quarters  of  the  city.  Growing  bolder  at  the  sight  of  their  own 
violence,  they  broke  open  the  prisons,  and  thus  obtained  a  re- 
enforcement  of  hundreds  of  desperadoes,  ripe  for  any  wickedness. 
The  troops  were  paralyzed  by  Louis's  imbecile  order  to  avoid 
bloodshed,  and  in  the  same  proportion  the  rioters  were  encour- 
aged by  their  inaction  and  evident  helplessness.  They  attacked 
the  great  armory,  and  equipped  themselves  with  its  contents,  ap- 
plying to  the  basest  uses  time-honored  weapons,  monuments  of 
ancient  valor  and  patriotism.  The  spear  with  which  Dunois  had 
cleared  his  country  of  the  British  invaders ;  the  sword  with  which 
the  first  Bourbon  king  had  routed  Egmont's  cavalry  at  Ivry,  were 
torn  down  from  the  walls  to  arm  the  vilest  of  mankind  for  rapine 
and  slaughter.  They  stormed  the  H6tel  de  Ville,  and  got  pos- 
session of  the  municipal  chest,  containing  three  millions  of  francs ; 
and  now,  more  and  more  intoxicated  with  their  triumph,  and 
with  the  evidence  which  all  these  exploits  afforded  that  the  whole 
city  was  at  their  mercy,  they  proceeded  to  give  their  riot  a  regu- 
lar organization,  by  establishing  a  committee  to  sit  in  the  Guild- 
hall and  direct  their  future  proceedings.  Lawless  and  ferocious 
as  was  the  main  body  of  the  rioters,  there  were  shrewd  heads  to 
guide  their  fury ;  and  the  very  first  order  issued  by  this  commit- 
tee was  marked  by  such  acute  foresight,  and  such  a  skillful  adap- 
tation to-  the  requirements  of  the  moment  and  the  humor  of  the 

*  This  story  reached  even  distant  provinces.  On  the  24th  of  July  Arthur 
Young,  being  at  Colmar,  was  assured  at  the  table-d'hote  "  that  the  queen  had 
a  plot,  nearly  on  the  point  of  execution,  to  blow  up  the  National  Assembly  by 
a  mine,  and  to  march  the  army  instantly  to  massacre  all  Paris."  A  French  of- 
ficer presumed  but  to  doubt  of  the  truth  of  it,  and  was  immediately  overpow- 
ered with  numbera  of  tongues.  A  deputy  had  written  it ;  they  had  seen  the 
letter.  And  at  Dijon,  a  week  later,  he  tells  us  that  "  the  current  report  at 
present,  to  which  ail  possible  credit  is  given,  is  that  the  queen  has  been  con- 
Ticted  of  a  plot  to  poison  the  king  and  monsieur,  and  give  the  regency  to  the 
Count  d'Artois,  to  set  fire  to  Paris,  and  blow  up  the  Palais  Royal  by  a  mine." 
— ARTHUR  YOUNG'S  Travels,  etc.,  in  France,  pp.  143,  151. 


ATTACK  ON  THE  BASTILE.  261 

people,  that  it  remains  in  force  to  this  day.  It  was  hardly  strange 
that  men  in  open  insurrection  against  the  king's  authority  should 
turn  their  wrath  against  one  of  its  conspicuous  emblems,  conse- 
crated though  it  was  by  usage  of  immemorial  antiquity  and  by 
many  a  heroic  achievement — the  snow-white  banner  bearing  the 
golden  lilies.  But  that  glorious  ensign  could  not  be  laid  aside 
till  another  was  substituted  for  it ;  and  the  colors  of  the  city,  red 
and  blue,  and  white,  the  color  of  the  army,  were  now  blended  to- 
gether to  form  the  tricolor  flag  which  has  since  won  for  itself  a 
wider  renown  than  even  the  deeds  of  Bayard  or  Turenne  had  shed 
upon  the  lilies,  and  with  which,  under  every  form  of  government, 
the  nation  has  permanently  identified  itself. 

They  demanded  more  men,  and  a  committee  with  three  mill- 
ions of  francs  could  easily  command  recruits.  They  stormed  the 
H6tel  des  Invalides,  where  thousands  of  muskets  were  kept  fit  for 
instant  use ;  one  division  of  regular  troops,  whose  commander, 
the  Baron  de  Besenval,  was  a  resolute  man,  determined  to  do 
his  duty,  mutinying  against  his  orders,  and  refusing  to  fire  on 
the  mob.  They  took  possession  of  the  city  gates,  and,  thinking 
themselves  now  strong  enough  for  any  exploit,  on  the  third  day  of 
the  insurrection,  the  14th  of  July,  they  marched  in  overpowering 
force  to  attack  the  Bastile. 

In  former  times  the  Bastile  had  been  the  great  fortress  of  the 
city ;  and,  as  such,  it  had  been  fortified  with  all  the  resources  of 
the  engineer's  art.  Massive  well-armed  towers  rose  at  numerous 
points  above  walls  of  great  height  and  solidity.  A  deep  fosse 
surrounded  it,  and,  when  well  supplied  and  garrisoned,  it  had 
been  regarded  with  pride  by  the  citizens,  as  a  bulwark  capable  of 
defying  the  utmost  efforts  of  a  foreign  enemy,  and  not  the  less  to 
be  admired  because  they  never  expected  it  to  be  exposed  to  such 
a  test ;  but  as  a  warlike  fortress  it  had  long  been  disused.  In  re- 
cent times  it  had  only  been  known  as  the  State-prison,  identified 
more  than  any  other  with  the  worst  acts  of  despotism  and  barbar- 
ity. As  such  it  was  now  as  much  detested  as  it  had  formerly 
been  respected ;  and  it  had  nothing  but  the  outward  appearance 
of  strength  to  resist  an  attack.  Evidently  the  military  authorities 
had  never  anticipated  the  possibility  that  the  mob  would  rise  to 
such  a  height  of  audacity.  But  the  rioters  were  now  encouraged 
by  two  days  of  unbroken  success,  and  those  who  spurred  them  on 
were  well-informed  as  well  as  fearless.  They  knew  that  the  cas- 
tle was  in  such  a  state  that  its  apparent  strength  was  its  real  weak- 


262  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

ness ;  that  its  entire  garrison  consisted  of  little  more  than  a  hun- 
dred soldiers,  most  of  whom  were  superannuated  veterans,  a  force 
inadequate  to  man  one-tenth  of  the  defenses;  and  that  the  gov- 
ernor, De  Launay,  though  personally  brave,  was  a  man  devoid  of 
presence  of  mind,  and  nervous  under  responsibility. 

Led  by  a  brewer,  named  Santerre,  who  for  the  next  three  years 
bore  a  conspicuous  part  in  all  the  worst  deeds  of  ferocity  and  hor- 
ror, they  assailed  the  gates  in  vast  numbers.  While  the  attention 
of  the  scanty  garrison  was  fully  occupied  by  this  assault,  another 
party  scaled  the  walls  at  a  point  where  there  was  not  even  a  sen- 
tinel to  give  the  alarm,  and  let  down  one  draw-bridge  across  the 
fosse,  while  another  was  loosened,  as  is  believed,  by  traitors  in 
the  garrison  itself.  Swarming  across  the  passage  thus  opened  to 
them,  thousands  of  the  assailants  rushed  in ;  murdered  the  gov- 
ernor, officers,  and  almost  every  one  of  the  garrison ;  and  with  a 
savage  ferocity,  as  yet  unexampled,  though  but  a  faint  omen  of 
their  future  crimes,  they  cut  off  the  head  and  hands  of  De  Lau- 
nay and  several  of  their  chief  victims,  and,  sticking  them  on  pikes, 
bore  them  as  trophies  of  their  victory  through  the  streets  of  the 
city. 

The  news  of  what  had  been  done  came  swiftly  to  Versailles, 
where  it  excited  feelings  in  the  Assembly  which,  had  the  king  or 
his  advisers  been  capable  of  availing  themselves  of  it  with  skill 
and  firmness,  might  have  led  to  a  salutary  change  in  the  policy 
of  that  body ;  for  the  greater  part  of  the  deputies  were  thorough- 
ly alarmed  at  the  violence  of  Santerre  and  his  companions,  and 
would  in  all  probability  have  supported  the  king  in  taking  strong 
measures  for  the  restoration  of  order.  But  Louis  could  not  be 
roused,  even  by  the  murder  of  his  own  faithful  servant,  to  employ 
force  to  save  those  who  might  be  similarly  menaced.  The  only 
expedient  which  occurred  to  his  mind  was  to  concede  all  that  the 
rioters  required ;  and  at  midday  on  the  1 5th  he  repaired  to  the 
Assembly,  and  announced  that  he  had  ordered  the  removal  of  the 
troops  from  Paris  and  from  Versailles ;  declaring  that  he  trusted 
himself  to  the  Assembly,  and  wished  to  identify  himself  with  the 
nation.  The  Assembly  could  hardly  have  avoided  feeling  that  it 
was  a  strange  time  to  select  for  withdrawing  the  troops,  when  an 
armed  mob  was  in  possession  of  the  capital ;  but,  as  they  had 
formerly  requested  that  measure,  they  thought  themselves  bound 
now  to  applaud  it,  and,  being  for  the  moment  touched  by  the 
compliment  paid  to  themselves,  when  he  quit  the  Hall  they  unan- 


TERROR  OF  THE  ASSEMBLY.  263 

imously  rose  and  followed  him,  escorting  him  back  to  the  pal- 
ace with  vehement  cheers.  A  vast  crowd  filled  the  outer  courts, 
who  caught  the  contagion,  and  shouted  out  a  demand  for  a  sight 
of  the  whole  royal  family ;  and  presently,  when  the  queen  brought 
out  on  the  balcony  her  only  remaining  boy,  whom  the  death  of 
his  brother  had  raised  to  the  rank  of  dauphin,  and  saluted  them 
with  a  graceful  bow,  the  whole  mass  burst  out  in  one  vociferous 
acclamation. 

Yet  even  in  that  moment  of  congratulation  there  were  base  and 
malignant  spirits  in  the  crowd,  full  of  bitterness  against  the  royal 
family,  and  especially  against  the  queen,  whom  they  had  evident- 
ly been  taught  to  regard  as  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  reforms 
which  they  desired.  Her  faithful  waiting  -  woman,  Madame  de 
Campan,  had  gone  down  into  the  court-yard  and  mingled  with 
the  crowd,  to  be  the  better  able  to  judge  of  their  real  feelings. 
She  could  see  that  many  were  disguised ;  and  one  woman,  whose 
veil  of  black  lace,  with  which  she  concealed  her  features,  showed 
that  she  did  not  belong  to  the  lowest  class,  seized  her  violently 
by  the  arm,  calling  her  by  her  name,  and  bid  her  "  go  and  tell  her 
queen  not  to  interfere  any  more  in  the  Government,  but  to  leave 
her  husband  and  the  good  States-general  to  work  out  the  happi- 
ness of  the  people."  Others  she  heard  uttering  threats  of  venge- 
ance against  Madame  de  Polignac.  And  one,  while  pouring  forth 
"a  thousand  invectives"  against  both  king  and  queen,  declared 
that  it  should  soon  be  impossible  to  find  even  a  fragment  of  the 
throne  on  which  they  were  now  seated. 

Marie  Antoinette  was  greatly  alarmed,  not  for  herself,  but  for 
her  husband;  and,  now  that  he  had  determined  on  withdrawing 
the  soldiers  from  the  capital,  she  earnestly  entreated  him  to  ac- 
company them,  taking  the  not  unreasonable  view  that  the  violence 
of  the  Parisian  mob  would  be  to  some  extent  quelled,  and  the 
well-intentioned  portion  of  the  Assembly  would  have  greater 
boldness  to  support  their  opinions,  if  the  king  were  thus  placed 
out  of  the  reach  of  danger  from  any  fresh  outbreak ;  and  it  was 
generally  understood  that  an  attack  on  Versailles  itself  was  antici- 
pated.* She  felt  so  certain  of  the  wisdom  of  such  a  course,  and  so 
sanguine  of  prevailing,  that  she  packed  up  her  diamonds,  burned 
many  of  her  papers,  and  drew  up  a  set  of  orders  for  the  arrange- 

*  "Car  des  ce  moment  on  mcnucait  Versailles  d'une  incursion  de  gens 
arm6s  de  Paris." — MADAME  DE  CAMPAN,  ch.  xiv. 


264  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

ment  of  the  details  of  the  journey.  But  on  the  morning  of  the 
1 6th  she  was  compelled  to  inform  Madame  Campan  that  the  plan 
was  given  up.  Large  portions  of  the  Parisian  mob,  and  among 
them  one  deputation  of  the  fish-women,  who  in  this,  as  well  as  OD 
more  festive  occasions,  claimed  equally  to  take  the  lead,  had  come 
out  to  demand  that  the  king  should  visit  Paris ;  and  the  Min- 
isterial Council  thought  it  safer  for  him  to  comply  with  that  pe- 
tition than  to  throw  himself  into  the  arms  of  the  soldiers,  a  step 
which  might  not  improbably  lead  to  a  civil  war. 

To  the  queen  this  seemed  the  most  dangerous  course  of  all. 
She  knew  that  both  at  Versailles  and  at  Paris  the  agents  of  the 
Duke  of  Orleans  had  been  scattering  money  with  a  lavish  hand ; 
and  she  scarcely  doubted  that  either  on  his  road,  or  in  the  city, 
her  husband  would  be  assassinated,  or  at  the  least  detained  by  the 
mob  as  a  prisoner  and  a  hostage. 

Had  she  not  feared  to  increase  his  danger,  she  would  have  ac- 
companied him  ;  but  at  such  a  crisis  it  required  more  courage  and 
fortitude  to  separate  herself  from  him ;  and  the  most  courageous 
part  was  ever  that  which  was  most  natural  to  her.  But,  though 
she  took  no  precautions  for  herself,  she  was  as  thoughtful  as  ever 
for  her  friends ;  and,  knowing  how  obnoxious  the  Duchess  de  Po- 
lignac  was  to  the  multitude,  she  insisted  on  her  departing  with  her 
family.  The  duchess  fled,  not  unwillingly  ;  and  at  the  same  time 
others  also  quit  Versailles  who  had  not  the  same  plea  of  delica- 
cy of  sex  to  excuse  their  terrors,  and  who  were  bound  by  every 
principle  of  duty  to  remain  by  the  king's  side  the  more  steadily 
the  greater  might  be  the  danger.  The  Prince  de  Conde,  who  cer- 
tainly at  one  time  had  been  a  brave  man,  and  had  won  an  hon- 
orable name,  worthy  of  his  intrepid  ancestor,  in  the  Seven  Years' 
War ;  his  brother,  the  Prince  de  Conti ;  the  Count  d'Artois,  who, 
having  always  been  the  advocate  of  the  most  violent  measures, 
was  doubly  bound  to  stand  forward  in  defense  of  his  king  and 
brother,  all  fled,  setting  the  first  example  of  that  base  emigration 
which  eventually  left  the  king  defenseless  in  the  midst  of  his  en- 
emies. The  Baron  de  Breteuil  and  some  of  the  ministers  made 
similar  provision  for  their  own  safety ;  though  it  may  be  said,  as 
some  extenuation  of  their  ignoble  flight,  that  they  had  no  longer 
any  official  duties  to  detain  them,  since  the  king  had  already  dis- 
missed them,  and  on  the  evening  of  the  16th  had  written  to 
Necker  to  beg  him  to  return  without  delay  and  resume  his  of- 
fice, claiming  his  instant  obedience  as  a  proof  of  the  attachment 


THE  KINO   VISITS  PARIS.  265 

and  fidelity  which  he  had  promised  when  departing  five  days 
before. 

On  the  morning  of  the  1 7th,  Louis  set  out  for  Paris  in  a  single 
carriage,  escorted  by  a  very  slender  guard  and  accompanied  by  a 
party  of  the  deputies.  He  was  fully  alive  to  the  danger  he  was 
incurring.  He  knew  that  threats  had  been  openly  uttered  that  he 
should  not  reach  Paris  alive;*  and  he  had  prepared  for  his  jour- 
ney as  for  death,  burning  his  papers,  taking  the  sacrament,  and 
making  arrangements  for  a  regency.  Marie  Antoinette  was  al- 
most hopeless  of  his  safety.  She  sat  with  her  children  in  her 
private  room,  shedding  no  tears,  lest  the  knowledge  of  her  grief 
should  increase  the  alarm  of  her  attendants;  but  her  carriages 
were  kept  harnessed,  and  she  had  prepared  and  learned  by  heart 
a  short  speech,  with  which,  if  the  worst  news  which  she  appre- 
hended should  arrive,  she  intended  to  repair  to  the  Assembly,  and 
claim  its  protection  for  the  wife  and  children  of  their  sovereign.f 
But  often,  as  she  rehearsed  it,  her  voice,  in  spite  of  all  her  efforts, 
was  broken  by  sobs,  and  her  reiterated  exclamation,  "  They  will 
never  let  him  return !"  but  too  truly  expressed  the  deep  forebod- 
ings of  her  heart. 

They  were  not  yet  fated  to  be  realized ;  the  Insurrection  Com- 
mittee had  already  organized  a  force  which  they  had  entitled  the 
National  Guard,  and  of  which  they  had  conferred  the  command  on 
the  Marquis  de  La  Fayette.  And  at  the  gates  of  the  city  the 
king  was  met  by  him  and  the  mayor,  a  man  named  Bailly,  who 
had  achieved  a  considerable  reputation  as  a  mathematician  and 
an  astronomer,  but  who  was  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  level, 
ing  and  irreligious  doctrines  of  the  school  of  the  Encyclopedists. 
No  men  in  Paris  were  less  likely  to  treat  their  sovereign  with  due 
respect. 

Since  his  return  from  America,  La  Fayette  had  been  living  in  re- 
tirement on  his  estate,  till  at  the  recent  election  he  had  been  re- 
turned to  the  States-general  as  one  of  the  representatives  of  the 
nobles  for  his  native  province  of  Auvergne.  He  had  taken  no 
part  in  the  debates,  being  entirely  destitute  of  political  abilities  ;J 

*  Lacretelle,  vol.  vii.,  p.  105. 

f  She  meant  to  say,  "  Messieurs,  je  viens  remettre  entre  vos  mains  1'epouse 
et  la  famille  de  votre  souverain.  Ne  souffrez  pas  que  Ton  desunisse  sur  la 
terre  ce  qui  a  etc  uni  dans  le  ciel." — MADAME  DE  CAMFAN,  ch.  xiv. 

\  Napoleon  seems  to  have  formed  this  opinion  of  his  political  views :  "  Se- 
lon  M.  Gourgaud,  Buonaparte,  causant  a  Ste.  Helene  le  traitait  avec  plus  de 


26G  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

and  he  had  apparently  no  very  distinct  political  views,  but  waver- 
ed between  a  desire  for  a  republic,  such  as  that  of  which  he  had 
witnessed  the  establishment  in  America,  and  a  feeling  in  favor  of 
a  limited  monarchy  such  as  he  understood  to  exist  in  Great  Brit- 
ain, though  he  had  no  accurate  comprehension  of  its  most  essen- 
tial principles.  But  his  ruling  passion  was  a  desire  for  populari- 
ty ;  and  as  he  had  always  been  vain  of  his  unbending  ill-manners 
as  a  proof  of  his  liberal  sentiments,*  and  as  his  vanity  made  him 
regard  kings  and  queens  with  a  general  dislike,  as  being  of  a  rank 
superior  to  his  own,  he  looked  on  the  present  occurrence  as  a  fa- 
vorable opportunity  for  gaining  the  good -will  of  the  mob,  by 
showing  marked  disrespect  to  Louis.  He  would  not  even  pay 
him  the  ordinary  compliment  of  appearing  in  uniform,  but  head- 
ed his  new  troops  in  plain  clothes ;  and  even  those  were  not  such 
as  belonged  to  his  rank,  but  were  the  ordinary  dress  of  a  plain 
citizen ;  while  Bailly's  address,  as  Louis  entered  the  gates,  was 
marked  with  the  most  studied  and  gratuitous  insolence.  "  Sire," 
said  he,  "  I  present  to  your  majesty  the  keys  of  your  good  city 
of  Paris.  They  are  the  same  which  were  presented  to  Henri  IV. 
He  had  conquered  his  people :  to-day  the  people  have  conquered 
their  king." 

Louis  proceeded  onward  to  the  H6tel  de  Ville,  in  a  strange  pro- 
cession, headed  by  a  numerous  band  of  fish-women,  always  prom- 
inent, and  recruited  at  every  step  by  a  crowd  of  rough  peasant- 
looking  men,  armed  with  bludgeons,  scythes,  and  every  variety  of 
rustic  weapons,  evidently  on  the  watch  for  some  opportunity  to 
create  a  tumult,  and  seeking  to  provoke  one  by  raising  from  time 
to  time  vociferous  shouts  of  "  Vive  la  nation  !"  and  uttering  fero- 
cious threats  against  any  one  who  might  chance  to  exclaim,  "  Vive 
le  roi !"  But  they  were  disconcerted  by  the  perfect  calmness  of 
the  king,  on  whom  danger  to  himself  seemed  the  only  thing  in- 
capable of  making  an  impression.  On  Bailly's  insolent  speech  he 
had  made  no  comment,  remarking,  in  a  whisper  to  his  principal 
attendant,  that  he  had  better  appear  not  to  have  heard  it.  And 

mdmpris  [que  Madame  de  Stae'l].     '  La  Fayette  etait  encore  un  autre  niais. 

H  dtait  nullement  tailld  pour  le  role  qu'il  avait  a  jouer C'etait  un  homme 

sans  talents,  ni  civils,  ni  militaires ;  esprit  borne,  caractere  dissimule,  doming 
par  des  ide'es  vagues  de  liberte  mal  dige>ees  chez  lui ;  mal  cogues.' " — £io- 
graphie  Universelle. 

*  In  his  Memoirs  he  boasts  of  the  "  gaucherie  de  ses  manieres  qui  ne  se 
plie>ent  jamais  aui  graces  de  la  Cour,"  p.  7. 


MADAME  DE  TOVRZEL.  267 

now  at  the  H6tel  de  Ville  his  demeanor  was  as  unruffled  as  if  ev- 
ery thing  that  had  happened  had  been  in  perfect  accordance  with 
his  wishes.  He  made  a  short  speech,  in  which  he  confirmed  all 
the  concessions  and  promises  which  he  had  previously  made.  He 
even  placed  in  his  hat  a  tricolor  cockade,  which  the  mayor  had 
the  effrontery  to  present  to  him,  though  it  was  the  emblem  of  the 
revolt  of  his  subjects  and  of  the  defeat  of  his  troops.  And  at  last 
such  an  effect  had  his  fearless  dignity  on  even  the  fiercest  of  his 
enemies,  that  when  he  afterward  came  out  on  the  balcony  to  show 
himself  to  the  crowd  beneath,  the  whole  mass  raised  the  shout  of 
"  Vive  le  roi !"  with  as  much  enthusiasm  as  had  ever  greeted  the 
most  feared  or  the  most  beloved  of  his  predecessors. 

His  return  to  the  barrier  resembled  a  triumphal  procession. 
Yet,  happy  as  it  seemed  that  outrage  had  thus  been  averted  and 
unanimity  restored,  the  result  of  the  day  can  not,  perhaps,  be 
deemed  entirely  fortunate,  since  it  probably  contributed  to  fix 
more  deeply  in  the  king's  mind  the  belief  that  concession  to  clam- 
or was  the  course  most  likely  to  be  successful.  Nor  did  the 
queen,  though  for  the  moment  her  despondency  was  changed  to 
thankful  exultation,  at  all  conceal  from  herself  that  the  perils 
which  had  been  escaped  were  certain  to  recur ;  and  that  vigilance 
and  firmness  would  surely  again  be  called  for  to  repel  them — 
qualities  which  she  could  find  in  herself,  but  which  she  might  well 
doubt  her  ability  to  impart  to  others.* 

Her  own  attention  was  for  a  moment  occupied  by  the  neces- 
sary work  of  selecting  a  new  governess  for  her  children  in  the 
place  of  Madame  de  Polignac;  and  after  some  deliberation  her 
choice  fell  on  the  Marchioness  de  Tourzel,  a  lady  of  the  most  spot- 
less character,  who  seems  to  have  been  in  every  respect  well  fitted 
for  so  important  an  office.  As  Marie  Antoinette  had  scarcely  any 
previous  acquaintance  with  her,  it  was  by  her  character  alone  that 
she.  had  been  recommended  to  her;  as  was  gracefully  expressed 
in  the  brief  speech  with  which  Marie  Antoinette  delivered  her  lit- 
tle charges  into  her  hands.  "  Madame,"  said  she,  "  I  formerly  in- 
trusted my  children  to  friendship;  to-day  I  intrust  them  to  vir- 
tue ;"f  and,  a  day  or  two  afterward,  to  make  easier  the  task  which 
the  marchioness  had  not  undertaken  without  some  unwillingness, 


*  See  her  letter  to  Mercy,  without  date,  but,  apparently  written  a  day  or  two 
after  the  king's  journey  to  Paris,  Feuillet  de  Conches,  i.,  p.  238. 

f  "  Souvenirs  de  Quarante  Ans  "  (by  Madame  de  Tourzel's  daughter),  p.  80. 


268  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

she  addressed  her  a  letter  in  which  she  describes  the  character  of 
her  son,  and  her  own  principles  and  method  of  education,  with  an 
impartiality  and  soundness  of  judgment  which  could  not  have 
been  surpassed  by  one  who  had  devoted  her  whole  attention  to 
the  subject : 

"July  25th,  1789. 

"  My  son  is  four  years  and  four  months  old,  all  but  two  days. 
I  say  nothing  of  his  size  nor  of  his  general  appearance ;  it  is  only 
necessary  to  see  him.  His  health  has  always  been  good,  but  even 

in  his  cradle  we  perceived  that  his  nerves  were  very  delicate 

This  delicacy  of  his  nerves  is  such  that  any  noise  to  which  he  is 
not  accustomed  frightens  him.  For  instance,  he  is  afraid  of  dogs 
because  he  once  heard  one  bark  close  to  him;  and  I  have  never 
obliged  him  to  see  one,  because  I  believe  that,  as  his  reason  grows 
stronger,  his  fears  will  pass  away.  Like  all  children  who  are 
strong  and  healthy,  he  is  very  giddy,  very  volatile,  and  violent  in 
his  passions ;  but  he  is  a  good  child,  tender,  and  even  caressing, 
when  his  giddiness  does  not  run  away  with  him.  He  has  a  great 
sense  of  what  is  due  to  himself,  which,  if  he  be  well  managed, 
one  may  some  day  turn  to  his  good.  Till  he  is  entirely  at  his 
ease  with  any  one,  he  can  restrain  himself,  and  even  stifle  his  im- 
patience and  his  inclination  to  anger,  in  order  to  appear  gentle  and 
amiable.  He  is  admirably  faithful  when  once  he  has  promised 
any  thing,  but  he  is  very  indiscreet ;  he  is  thoughtless  in  repeat- 
ing any  thing  that  he  has  heard ;  and  often,  without  in  the  least 
intending  to  tell  stories,  he  adds  circumstances  which  his  own  im- 
agination has  put  into  his  head.  This  is  his  greatest  fault, 
and  it  is  one  for  which  he  must  be  corrected.  However,  taken 
altogether,  I  say  again,  he  is  a  good  child ;  and  by  treating  him 
with  allowance,  and  at  the  same  time  with  firmness,  which  must 
be  kept  clear  of  severity,  we  shall  always  be  able  to  do  all  that  we 
can  wish  with  him.  But  severity  would  revolt  him,  for  he  has  a 
great  deal  of  resolution  for  his  age.  To  give  you  an  instance  : 
from  his  very  earliest  childhood  the  word  pardon  has  always  of- 
fended him.  He  will  say  and  do  all  that  you  can  wish  when  he 
is  wrong,  but  as  for  the  word  pardon,  he  never  pronounces  it 
without  tears  and  infinite  difficulty.  . 

"  I  have  always  accustomed  my  children  to  have  great  confi- 
dence in  me,  and,  when  they  have  done  wrong,  to  tell  me  them- 
selves; and  then,  when  I  scold  them,  this  enables  me  to  appear 
pained  and  afflicted  at  what  they  have  done  rather  than  angry. 


HER  SYSTEM  OF  EDUCATION.  269 

I  have  accustomed  them  all  to  regard  '  yes '  or  '  no,'  once  uttered 
by  me,  as  irrevocable ;  but  I  always  give  them  reasons  for  my  de- 
cision, suitable  to  their  ages,  to  prevent  their  thinking  that  my 
decision  comes  from  ill-humor.  My  son  can  not  read,  and  he  is 
very  slow  af  learning ;  but  he  is  too  giddy  to  apply.  He  has  no 
pride  in  his  heart,  and  I  am  very  anxious  that  he  should  continue 
to  feel  so.  Our  children  always  learn  soon  enough  what  they 
are.  He  is  very  fond  of  his  sister,  and  has  a  good  heart.  When- 
ever any  thing  gives  him  pleasure,  whether  it  be  the  going  any- 
where, or  that  any  one  gives  him  any  thing,  his  first  movement  al- 
ways is  to  ask  that  his  sister  may  have  the  same.  He  is  light- 
hearted  by  nature.  It  is  necessary  for  his  health  that  he  should 
be  a  great  deal  in  the  open  air ;  and  I  think  it  is  better  to  let  him 
play  and  work  in  the  garden  on  the  terrace,  than  to  take  him  long- 
er walks.  The  exercise  which  children  take  in  running  about  and 
playing  in  the  open  air  is  much  more  healthy  than  forcing  them 
to  walk,  which  often  makes  their  backs  ache."* 

Some  of  these  last  recommendations  may  seem  to  show  that 
the  governess  was,  to  some  extent,  regarded  as  a  nurse  as  well  as 
a  teacher;  and  when  we  find  Marie  Antoinette  complaining  of 
want  of  discretion  in  a  child  of  four  years  old,  it  may  perhaps  be 
thought  that  she  is  expecting  rather  more  of  such  tender  years 
than  is  often  found  in  them ;  that  she  is  inclined  to  be  overex- 
acting  rather  than  overindulgent ;  an  error  the  more  venial,  since 
it  is  probable  that  the  educators  of  princes  are  more  likely  to  go 
astray  in  the  opposite  direction.  But  it  is  impossible  to  avoid 
being  struck  with  the  candor  with  which  she  judges  her  boy's 
character,  and  with  the  judiciousness  of  her  system  of  education ; 
and  equally  impossible  to  resist  the  conviction  that  a  boy  of  good 
disposition,  trained  by  such  a  mother,  had  every  chance  of  becom- 
ing a  blessing  to  his  subjects,  if  fate  had  only  allowed  him  to  suc- 
ceed to  the  throne  which  she  had  still  a  right  to  look  forward  to 
for  him  as  his  assured  inheritance. 

*  Feuillet  de  Couches,  L,  p.  240. 


270  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

Necker  resumes  Office.  —  Outrages  in  the  Provinces.  —  Pusillanimity  of  the 
Body  of  the  Nation. —  Parties  in  the  Assembly. —  Views  of  the  Constitu- 
tionalists or  "Plain."  —  Barnave  makes  Overtures  to  the  Court.  —  The 
Queen  rejects  them.  —  The  Assembly  abolishes  all  Privileges,  August 
4th.  —  Debates  on  the  Veto.  —  An  Attack  on  Versailles  is  threatened. — 
Great  Scarcity  in  Paris. — The  King  sends  his  Plate  to  be  melted  down. — 
The  Regiment  of  Flanders  is  brought  up  to  Versailles. — A  Military  Ban- 
quet is  held  in  the  Opera-house. — October  5th,  a  Mob  from  Paris  marches 
on  Versailles. — Blunders  of  La  Fayette. — Ferocity  of  the  Mob  on  the  5th. 
— Attack  on  the  Palace  on  the  6th. — Danger  and  Heroism  of  the  Queen. — 
The  Royal  Family  remove  to  Paris. —  Their  Reception  at  the  Barrier  and 
at  the  Hotel  de  Ville. —  Shabbiness  of  the  Tuileries. —  The  King  fixes  his 
Residence  there. 

NECKER  had  obeyed  the  king's  summons  the  moment  that  he 
received  it,  and  before  the  end  of  the  month  he  returned  to  Ver- 
sailles and  resumed  his  office.  But,  even  before  the  king's  dis- 
patch reached  him,  Paris  had  witnessed  terrible  proofs  that  the 
tranquillity  which  the  king's  visit  to  the  capital  was  supposed  to 
have  re-established  was  but  temporary.  The  populace  had  broken 
out  into  fresh  tumults,  murdering  some  of  Breteuil's  colleagues 
with  circumstances  of  frightful  barbarity ;  while  intelligence  of 
similar  disturbances  in  the  provinces  was  constantly  arriving.  In 
Normandy,  in  Alsace,  and  in  Provence,  in  the  towns,  and  in  the 
rural  districts,  the  towns-people  and  the  peasants  rose  against  their 
wealthier  neighbors  or  their  landlords,  burning  their  houses,  and 
commonly  murdering  the  owners  with  the  most  revolting  barbar- 
ity. Some  were  torn  into  pieces ;  some  were  roasted  alive ;  some 
had  actually  portions  of  their  flesh  cut  off  and  eaten  by  their 
murderers  in  their  own  sight,  before  the  blow  was  given  which 
terminated  their  agonies.  Their  sex  did  not  save  ladies  from  be- 
ing victims  of  the  same  cruelties,  nor  did  it  prevent  women  from 
being  actors  in  them. 

Yet  the  horror  of  these  scenes  was  scarcely  stranger  than  the 
pusillanimity  of  those  who  endured  them  unresistingly ;  for  there 
were  not  wanting  instances  of  magistrates  honest  enough  to  de- 
test, and  courageous  enough  to  chastise,  such  outrages ;  and  wher- 


PARTIES  IN  THE  ASSEMBLY.  271 

ever  the  effort  was  made  it  succeeded  so  completely  as  to  fix  no 
slight  criminality  on  those  who  submitted  to  them.  In  Dauphiny, 
the  States  of  the  province  raised  a  small  guard,  which  quelled  the 
first  attempts  to  cause  riots  there,  and  hanged  the  ringleaders.  In 
Macon,  a  similar  force,  though  not  three  hundred  strong,  encoun- 
tered a  band  of  brigands,  six  thousand  in  number,  and  brought 
back  two  hundred  prisoners,  the  chiefs  of  whom  were  instantly 
executed,  and  by  their  prompt  punishment  tranquillity  was  re- 
stored. Similar  firmness  would  have  saved  other  districts,  which 
now  allowed  themselves  to  be  the  victims  of  ravage  and  murder ; 
as  afterward  it  would  have  preserved  the  whole  country,  even 
when  the  madness  and  wickedness  of  subsequent  years  were  at 
their  height ;  for  in  no  part  of  the  kingdom  did  those  who  per- 
petrated or  sympathized  with  the  crimes  which  have  made  the 
Revolution  a  by-word,  approach  the  number  of  those  who  loathed 
them,  but  who  had  not  the  courage  or  foresight  to  withstand 
them.  It  seemed  as  if  a  long  course  of  misgovernment,  and  the 
example  of  the  profligacy  and  impiety  set  by  the  higher  classes 
for  many  generations,  had  demoralized  the  entire  people,  some 
in  their  excesses  discarding  the  ordinary  instincts  of  human  be- 
ings; while  the  bulk  of  the  nation  had  lost  even  that  courage 
which  had  once  been  among  its  most  shining  qualities,  and  had 
no  longer  the  manliness  to  resist  outrages  which  they  abhorred, 
even  when  their  own  safety  was  staked  upon  their  repression. 

And  similar  weakness  was  exhibited  in  the  Assembly  -itself ; 
for,  unquestionably,  the  party  which  at  last  prevailed  was  not  that 
which  was  originally  the  strongest.  Like  most  assemblies  of  the 
kind,  it  was  divided  into  three  parties — the  extreme  Royalists,  or 
"  the  Right ;"  the  extreme  Reformers  (who  were  subdivided  into 
several  sections),  or  "  the  Left ;"  and  between  them  the  moderate 
Constitutionalists,  or  "  the  Plain,"  as  they  were  called,  from  occu- 
pying seats  in  the  middle  of  the  hall,  between  the  raised  benches 
on  either  side.  And  to  the  last  party  belonged  all  the  men  most 
distinguished  either  for  statesman-like  perceptions  or  for  eloquence, 
Mirabeau  himself  agreeing  with  them  in  all  their  leading  princi- 
ples, though  he  never  formally  enrolled  himself  in  the  ranks  of 
any  party. 

The  majority  of  the  Constitutionalists  were  as  loyal  to  the  king's 
person  and  dignity  as  the  extreme  Royalists ;  their  most  eloquent 
speaker,  a  young  lawyer  named  Barnave,  at  the  first  opening  of 
the  States  had  even  sought  to  open  a  direct  communication  with 


272  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

the  court,  begging  Madame  de  Lamballe*  to  assure  the  queen  of 
the  wish  of  himself  and  all  his  friends  to  maintain  the  king  in 
the  full  enjoyment  and  exercise  of  what  he  called  a  Constitution- 
al authority,  borrowing  the  idea  and  expression  from  the  English 
Government.  But  though  Marie  Antoinette  had  no  objection  to 
the  king  of  his  own  accord  renouncing  portions  of  the  power  which 
had  been  claimed  and  exerted  by  his  predecessors,  she  would  not 
hear  of  the  States  taking  upon  themselves  to  impose  such  sacri- 
fices on  him,  or  to  curtail  his  authority  by  any  exercise  of  their 
own ;  and  she  rejected  with  something  like  disdain  the  support 
of  those  whose  alliance  was  only  to  be  purchased  on  such  condi- 
tions. Barnave,  like  Mirabeau,  felt  insulted ;  determined  to  re- 
venge himself,  and  for  a  while  united  himself  to  the  fiercest  of 
the  Republicans ;  while  the  Right,  with  incredible  folly,  often  play- 
ed into  his  hand,  joining  the  Left,  of  which  many  members  avow- 
edly aimed  at  the  abolition  of  royalty,  and  with  none  of  whom 
they  had  one  opinion  or  sentiment  in  common  to  defeat  the  Con- 
stitutionalists, with  whom  they  practically  had  but  very  slight  dif- 
ferences. And  thus,  as  with  a  base  pusillanimity,  many,  both  of 
the  Right  and  of  the  Plain,  fled  from  the  country  after  the  tu- 
mults of  October,  the  mastery  of  the  Assembly  gradually  fell  into 
the  hands  of  that  party  which  contained  by  far  fewer  men  of  abil- 
ity or  honesty  than  either  of  the  others,  but  which  surpassed  them 
both  in  distinctness  of  object,  and  in  unscrupulous  resolution  to 
carry  out  its  views. 

But  the  events  of  July,  the  mutiny  of  the  troops,  the  successful 
insurrection  of  the  mob,  the  destruction  of  the  Bastile,  and  the  vis- 
it of  Louis  to  Paris,  had  been  a  series  of  damaging  blows  to  the 
Government ;  and  as  each  successive  exploit  gave  encouragement 
to  the  movement  party,  events  proceeded  with  extreme  rapidity. 
Necker,  who  returned  to  Versailles  on  the  27th  of  July,  showed 
more  clearly  than  ever  his  unfitness  for  the  chief  post  in  the  ad- 
ministration at  such  a  crisis,  by  devoting  himself  solely  to  finan- 
cial arrangements,  and  omitting  to  take,  on  the  part  of  the  crown, 
the  initiative  in  any  one  of  the  reforms  which  the  king  had  prom- 
ised. Those  he  permitted  to  be  intrusted  to  a  committee  of  the 
Assembly ;  and  the  committee  had  scarcely  met  when  the  Assem- 
bly took  the  matter  into  its  own  hands;  and  in  a  strange  panic, 
and  at  a  single  sitting,  swept  away  the  privileges  of  both  Nobles 

*  "  M&moires  de  la  Princesse  de  Lamballe,"  i.,  p.  342. 


DISCUSSION  OF  THE  "VETO."  273 

and  clergy,  those  who  seemed  personally  most  concerned  in  their 
maintenance  being  the  foremost  in  urging  their  suppression.  A 
member  of  the  oldest  nobility  proposed  the  abolition  of  the  priv- 
ileges of  the  Nobles.  A  bishop  moved  the  extinction  of  tithes ; 
Bretons,  Burgundians,  Provencals,  renounced  for  their  fellow-citi- 
zens the  old  distinctions  and  immunities  to  which  each  province 
had  hitherto  clung  with  an  unyielding  if  somewhat  unreasoning 
attachment ;  and  the  whole  was  crowned  by  the  Archbishop  of 
Paris  proposing  a  celebration  of  the  Te  Deum  as  an  expression 
of  gratitude  to  God  for  having  inspired  a  series  of  actions  calcu- 
lated to  confer  so  much  happiness  on  the  nation. 

Though  he  could  not  avoid  seeing  the  mischievous  character  of 
many  of  the  resolutions  thus  tumultuously  passed,  and  though  his 
royal  assent  to  them  was  asked  in  language  unceremonious  and 
almost  peremptory  in  its  curtness,  Louis  could  not  bring  himself, 
or  perhaps  did  not  venture,  to  refuse  his  sanction  to  them.  He 
had  laid  down  a  rule  for  himself  to  refuse  no  concession  except 
such  as  on  religious  grounds  his  conscience  might  revolt  from ; 
and  on  the  13th  he  signified  his  formal  acceptance  of  the  resolu- 
tions, and  of  the  title  of  "  Restorer  of  French  Liberty."  It  was  an 
act  of  great  weakness,  and  was  rewarded,  as  such  acts  generally 
are,  by  further  encroachments  on  his  authority.  The  progress  of 
the  Left  was  not  even  arrested  by  a  quarrel  between  some  of  its 
members  (who,  being  clergymen,  were  not  inclined  to  be  reduced 
to  beggary  by  the  extinction  of  their  incomes),  and  Mirabeau,  who, 
not  unnaturally,  bore  the  priests  especial  ill-will.  Before  the  end 
of  the  month,  the  Assembly  even  deprived  the  king  of  the  power 
of  withholding  his  assent  from  measures  which  it  might  pass,  en- 
acting that  he  should  no  longer  possess  an  absolute  "  veto,"  as  it 
was  called,  and  Necker,  exhibiting  on  this  question  an  incapacity 
more  glaring  than  even  his  former  conduct  had  displayed,  induced 
the  king  to  yield  this  point  also ;  and  to  express  his  own  prefer- 
ence for  what  its  contrivers  called  a  suspensive  veto  —  a  power, 
that  is,  of  withholding  his  assent  to  any  measure  till  it  had  been 
passed  by  two  successive  Assemblies.  The  discussions  on  this 
most  momentous  point  had  been  very  vehement  in  the  Assembly 
itself ;  and,  besides  the  greatness  of  the  principle  involved  in  the 
decision,  they  have  a  peculiar  importance  as  showing  that  Mira- 
beau had  not  the  absolute  power  over  the  minds  of  the  members 
which  he  believed  himself  to  possess ;  since  he  contended  with  all 
the  energy  of  his  temper,  and  with  irresistible  force  of  argument, 

18 


274  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

against  a  vote  which,  as  he  declared,  could  only  take  the  power 
from  the  king  to  vest  it  in  the  Assembly,  and  yet  was  wholly  un- 
able to  carry  more  than  a  small  minority  with  him  in  his  opposition. 

And  this  defeat  may  have  had  some  share  in  prompting  him 
to  countenance  and  aid,  if  indeed  he  was  not  the  original  con- 
triver of,  a  plot  which  was  undoubtedly  intended  to  produce  a 
change  in  the  whole  frame-work  of  the  Government.  The  harvest 
had  been  bad,  and  at  the  beginning  of  September  Paris  was  suffer- 
ing under  a  scarcity  almost  as  severe  as  had  ever  been  felt  in  the 
depth  of  winter.  The  emergency  was  so  great  that  the  king  sent 
all  his  plate  to  the  Mint  to  be  melted  down,  to  procure  money  to 
purchase  food  for  the  starving  citizens ;  and  many  patriotic  indi- 
viduals, Necker  himself  being  among  the  most  munificent,  gave 
their  plate  and  jewels  for  the  same  benevolent  object.  But  relief 
procured  from  such  sources  was  unavoidably  of  too  limited  a 
character  to  last  long.  Though  Necker  proposed  and  the  Assem- 
bly voted  taxes  of  prodigious  amount,  they  could  not  at  once  be 
made  available,  and  some  of  the  lower  classes  were  said  to  have 
died  of  actual  famine.  In  their  distress  the  citizens  looked  to 
the  king,  and  attributed  their  misery  in  a  great  degree  to  his  ig- 
norance of  their  situation,  which  was  caused  by  his  living  at  Ver- 
sailles. They  nicknamed  him  the  "  Baker,"  as  if  he  could  supply 
them  with  bread,  and  began  to  clamor  for  him  at  least  to  take  up 
an  occasional  residence  among  them  in  his  capital.  From  raising 
a  cry,  the  step  was  easy  to  organize  a  riot  to  compel  him  to  do 
so.  And  to  this  object  the  partisans  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  as- 
sisted, if  not  prompted,  by  Mirabeau,  now  began  to  apply  them- 
selves, hoping  that  the  result  would  be  the  deposition  of  Louis 
and  the  enthronement  of  the  duke,  who  might  be  glad  to  take 
the  great  orator  for  his  prime  minister. 

So  certain  did  the  conspirators  feel  of  success,  that  they  took 
no  pains  to  keep  their  machinations  secret.  As  early  as  the  mid- 
dle of  September  intelligence  was  received  at  Versailles  that  the 
Parisians  would  march  upon  that  town  in  force  on  the  5th  of 
October;  and  the  Assembly  was  greatly  alarmed,  believing,  not 
without  reason,  that  the  object  of  the  intended  attack  was  to 
overawe  and  overbear  them.  The  magistrates  of  the  town  were 
even  more  terrified,  and  besought  the  king  to  bring  up  at  least 
one  regiment  for  their  protection.  And,  prudent  and  reasonable 
as  the  request  was,  the  compliance  with  it  furnished  the  agents 
of  sedition  with  pretexts  for  further  violence. 


BANQUET  AT  VERSAILLES.  275 

A  regiment,  known  as  that  of  Flanders,  was  sent  for  from  the 
frontiers,  and  speedily  arrived  at  Versailles,  when,  according  to 
their  old  and  hospitable  fashion,  the  Body-guard,*  who  regarded 
Versailles  as  their  home,  invited  the  officers,  and  with  them  the 
officers  of  the  Swiss  Guard,  and  those  of  the  town  militia  also,  to 
a  banquet  on  the  1st  of  October.  The  opera-house,  as  had  often 
been  done  in  similar  instances,  was  lent  for  the  occasion ;  and  the 
boxes  were  filled  with  the  chief  ladies  of  the  court  and  of  the 
town,  and  also  with  many  members  of  the  Assembly,  as  specta- 
tors. So  enthusiastic  were  the  acclamations^  that  greeted  the 
toast  of  the  king's  health,  that,  though  Marie  Antoinette  had 
previously  desired  that  the  royal  family  should  not  appear  to 
have  any  connection  with  the  entertainment,  the  captain  of  the 
guard,  the  Count  de  Luxembourg,  had  no  difficulty  in  persuading 
her  that  it  would  but  be  a  graceful  recognition  of  such  sponta- 
neous and  sincere  loyalty  at  such  a  time  if  she  were  to  honor 
the  banquet  with  her  presence,  though  but  by  the  briefest  visit. 
Louis,  too,  accepted  the  proposal  with  greater  warmth  than  usual, 
and  when  the  royal  pair  with  their  children — the  queen,  as  was 
her  custom,  leading  one  in  each  hand  —  descended  from  their 
apartments  and  walked  through  the  banquet-hall,  the  enthusiasm 
was  redoubled.  The  spectators,  among  whom  were  many  mem- 
bers of  the  Assembly,  caught  the  contagion.  Loyal  cheers  re- 
sounded from  every  part  of  the  theatre,  and  the  feelings  excited 
became  so  fervid  that  some  officers  of  the  National  Guard,  who 
were  among  the  guests,  reversed  their  new  tricolor  cockade,  and, 
displaying  the  white  side  outermost,  seemed  to  have  resumed  the 
time-honored  badge  under  which  the  army  had  reaped  all  its  old 
glories.  The  band  struck  up  a  favorite  air  from  one  of  the  new 
operas,  "Peut-on  affliger  ce  qu'on  aime?"  which  those  who  saw 
the  anxiety  which  recent  events  had  already  stamped  upon  the 
queen's  majestic  brow  could  hardly  avoid  applying  to  their  royal 
mistress;  and  when  it  followed  it  up  by  Blonde!' s  lamentation 
for  Richard,  "  O  Richard,  O  mon  roi,  1'univers  t'abandonne,"  the 
first  notes  of  the  well-known  song  touched  a  chord  in  every  heart, 
and  the  whole  company,  courtiers,  ladies,  soldiers,  and  deputies, 
were  all  carried  away  in  a  perfect  delirium  of  loyal  rapture.  The 
whole  company  escorted  the  royal  family  back  to  their  apart- 
ments ;  though  it  was  remarked  afterward  that  some  of  the  sol- 

*  Lea  Gardes  du  Corpa. 


276  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

diers,  who  on  this  occasion  were  the  most  vociferous  in  their  ex- 
ultation, were,  before  the  end  of  the  same  week,  among  the  most 
furious  threateners  and  assailants  of  the  palace. 

But  a  demonstration  such  as  this,  in  which  the  whole  number 
of  the  soldiers  concerned  did  not  exceed  fifteen  hundred  men, 
could  not  deter  the  organizers  of  the  impending  riot  from  carry- 
ing out  their  plan :  if  it  did  not  even  aid  them  by  the  opportuni- 
ties which  it  afforded  for  spreading  abroad  exaggerated  accounts 
of  what  had  taken  place,  as  an  additional  proof  of  the  settled  ha- 
tred and  contempt  which  the  court  entertained  for  the  people. 
Mirabeau  had  suggested  that  the  best  chance  of  success  for  an  in- 
surrection in  Paris  lay  in  placing  women  at  its  head ;  and,  in  com- 
pliance with  his  hint,  at  day-break  on  the  appointed  morning  a 
woman  of  notorious  infamy  of  character  moved  toward  the  chief 
market-place  of  Paris,  beating  a  drum,  and  calling  on  all  who 
heard  her  to  follow  her.*  She  soon  gathered  round  her  a  troop 
of  followers  worthy  of  such  a  leader,  market-women,  fish-women, 
and  men  in  women's  clothes,  whose  deep  voices,  and  the  power 
with  which  they  brandished  their  weapons,  betrayed  their  sex 
through  their  disguise. 

One  man,  Maillard,  who  had  been  conspicuous  as  one  of  the 
fiercest  of  the  stormers  of  the  Bastile>  disdained  any  concealment 
or  dress  but  his  own ;  they  chose  him  for  their  leader,  mingling 
with  their  cries  for  bread  horrid  threats  against  the  queen  and 
the  aristocrats.  Their  numbers  increased  till  they  felt  themselves 
strong  enough  to  attack  the  H6tel  de  Ville.  A  detachment  of 
the  National  Guard  who  were  on  duty  offered  them  no  resistance, 
pleading  that  they  had  received  no  orders  from  La  Fayette ;  and 
the  rioters,  now  amounting  to  many  thousands,  having  armed 
themselves  from  the  store  of  muskets  and  swords  which  they 
found  in  the  armory,  passed  on  to  the  barrier  and  took  the  road 
to  Versailles. 

The  riot  had  lasted  four  hours,  and  the  very  last  of  the  rioters 
had  already  passed  through  the  gates  before  La  Fayette  reached 
the  H6tel  de  Ville,  though  his  office  of  Commander  of  the  Na- 
tional Guard  made  the  preservation  of  tranquillity  one  of  his  most 
especial  duties.  He  had  evidently  feared  to  risk  his  popularity 
by  resisting  the  mob,  and  even  now  he  refused  to  act  at  all  till  he 
had  received  a  written  order  from  the  Municipal  Council ;  and, 

*  Louis  Blanc,  iiL,  p.  156,  quoting  the  Procedure  du  Chatelet 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  RIOT.  277 

when  he  had  obtained  that,  he  did  not  obey  it ;  but  preferred 
complying  with  the  demands  of  his  own  soldiers,  who  insisted  on 
following  the  rioters  to  Versailles,  where  they  would  exterminate 
the  regiment  of  Flanders ;  bring  the  king  back  to  Paris ;  and 
perhaps  depose  him  and  appoint  a  Regent.  Yet  even  this  open 
avowal  of  their  treasonable  views  did  not  deter  their  unworthy 
general  from  submitting  to  their  dictates.  He  had  indeed  no  de- 
sire for  the  success  of  their  designs ;  for  he  had  no  connection 
with  the  Due  d'Orleans,  and  no  inclination  to  co-operate  with 
Mirabeau,  who  he  knew  was  in  the  habit  of  speaking  of  him  with 
contempt ;  but  he  had  not  firmness  to  resist  their  demand.  His 
vanity,  too,  always  his  most  predominant  feeling,  was  flattered  by 
the  desire  they  expressed  to  retain  him  as  their  commander,  and 
at  last  he  procured  from  the  magistrates  a  fresh  order,  authoriz- 
ing him  to  comply  with  the  soldiers'  clamor,  and  to  lead  them  to 
Versailles. 

When  before  the  magistrates  he  had  professed  an  expectation 
that  he  should  be  able  to  induce  the  king  to  comply  with  the 
wishes  of  the  Assembly,  and  a  determination  to  restrain  the  ex- 
cesses of  the  mob ;  but  the  whole  day  had  been  so  wasted  by  his 
irresolution  that  when  he  at  last  put  his  regiment  in  motion  it 
was  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening — full  four  hours  after  Maillard 
and  his  fish-women  had  reached  Versailles.  The  news  of  their 
approach  and  of  their  designs  had  been  brought  to  the  palace  by 
Monsieur  de  Chinon,  the  eldest  son  of  the  Due  de  Richelieu,  who, 
at  great  personal  risk,  had  disguised  himself  as  an  artisan,  and  had 
marched  some  way  with  the  crowd  to  learn  their  object.  He  re- 
ported that  even  the  women  and  children  were  armed,  that  the 
great  majority  were  drunk;  that  they  were  beguiling  the  way 
with  the  most  ferocious  threats,  and  that  they  had  been  joined  by 
a  gang  of  men  who  gave  themselves  the  name  of  "  Coupe-tetes," 
and  boasted  that  they  should  have  ample  opportunity  of  proving 
their  title  to  it. 

In  addition  to  the  warnings  previously  received,  a  rumor  had 
reached  the  palace  on  the  preceding  evening  that  the  Due  d'Or- 
leans had  come  down  to  Versailles  in  disguise,*  a  movement 
which  could  hardly  have  an  innocent  object ;  but  so  little  heed 
had  been  given  to  the  intelligence,  or,  it  may  perhaps  be  said,  so 
little  was  it  supposed  that,  if  such  an  attack  was  really  meditated, 

*  "Souvenirs  de  la  Marquise  de  Cr6quy,"  vol.  vii.,  p.  119. 


278  LIFE  OF  MAMIE  ANTOINETTE. 

any  warning  would  have  been  given,  that  Monsieur  de  Chinon 
found  the  palace  empty.  Louis  had  gone  to  hunt  in  the  Bois  de 
Meudon ;  Marie  Antoinette  was  at  the  Little  Trianon.  But  mes- 
sengers easily  found  them.  The  queen  came  in  with  speed  from 
her  garden,  which  she  was  destined  never  to  behold  again ;  the 
king  hastened  back  from  his  coverts ;  and  by  the  time  that  they 
returned,  the  Count  de  St.  Priest,  the  Minister  of  the  Household, 
had  their  carriages  ready  for  them  to  retire  to  Rambouillet,  and 
he  earnestly  pressed  the  adoption  of  such  a  course.  Louis,  as 
usual,  could  not  make  up  his  mind.  He  sat  in  his  chair,  repeat- 
ing that  it  was  a  moment  to  think  seriously.  "Rather,"  said 
Marie  Antoinette,  "  say  that  it  is  a  time  to  act  promptly."  He 
would  gladly  have  had  her  depart  with  her  children,  but  she  re- 
fused to  leave  him,  declaring  that  her  place  was  by  his  side ;  that, 
as  the  daughter  of  Maria  Teresa,  she  did  not  fear  death ;  and  aft- 
er a  time  he  changed  his  mind  and  ceased  to  wish  even  her  to  re- 
tire, clinging  to  his  old  conviction  that  conciliation  was  always 
possible.  He  believed  that  he  had  won  over  even  the  worst  of 
the  mob,  and  that  all  danger  was  past. 

Versailles  witnessed  a  strange  scene  that  morning.  The  mo- 
ment that  the  mob  reached  the  town,  they  forced  their  way  into 
the  Assembly  Hall,  where  Mail  lard,  as  their  spokesman,  after  ter- 
rifying the  members  with  ferocious  threats  against  the  whole 
body  of  the  Nobles,  demanded  that  the  Assembly  should  send  a 
deputation  to  the  king  to  represent  to  him  the  distress  of  the 
people,  and  that  a  party  of  the  women  should  accompany  it. 
Louis  consented  to  receive  them,  and  when  they  reached  the  pal- 
ace, the  women,  disorderly  and  ferocious  as  they  were,  were  so 
awed  by  the  magnificence  and  pomp  which  they  beheld,  and  by 
the  actual  presence  of  the  king  and  queen,  that  they  could  only 
summon  up  a  few  modest  and  humble  words  of  petition,  and  one, 
a  young  and  pretty  girl  of  seventeen,  fainted  with  the  excitement. 
One  of  the  princesses  brought  her  a  glass  of  water :  she  recover- 
ed, and,  as  she  knelt  to  kiss  the  king's  hand,  Louis  kissed  her 
himself,  and,  transported  by  his  affability,  she  and  her  compan- 
ions quit  the  apartment,  uttering  loud  cheers  for  the  king  and 
queen.  But  this  had  not  been  the  impression  which  their  lead- 
ers had  intended  them  to  receive ;  and,  when  they  reached  the 
streets,  their  new-born  loyalty  so  exasperated  their  comrades  that 
the  soldiers  had  some  difficulty  in  saving  them  from  their  fury. 

Meanwhile,  the  mob  increased  every  hour.     They  occupied  the 


THE  MOB  AT  VERSAILLES.  279 

court-yard  of  the  palace,  roaring  out  ferocious  threats,  the  most 
sanguinary  of  which  were  directed  against  the  queen.  The  Pres- 
ident of  the  Assembly  moved  that  the  members  should  adjourn 
and  repair  to  the  palace  for  the  protection  of  the  royal  family, 
but  Mirabeau  resisted  the  proposal,  and  procured  its  rejection ; 
and  when  a  large  party  of  the  members  went,  as  individuals,  to 
place  their  services  at  the  king's  disposal,  he  mingled  with  the 
rioters,  tampering  with  the  soldiers,  and  urging  them  to  espouse 
what  he  called  the  cause  of  the  people.  As  it  grew  dark,  the 
crowd  grew  more  and  more  tumultuous  and  violent.  The  Body- 
guard, who  were  all  gentlemen,  were  faithful  and  fearless ;  but  it 
began  to  be  seen  that  none  of  the  other  troops,  not  even  the  reg- 
iment of  Flanders,  could  be  trusted.  Some  of  them  even  fired  on 
the  Body-guard,  and  mortally  wounded  its  commander,  the  Mar- 
quis de  Savonieres ;  while  Louis,  adhering  to  his  unhappy  policy 
of  conciliation  even  at  such  a  moment,  sent  down  orders  to  the 
officer  who  succeeded  to  the  command  that  the  men  were  not  to 
use  their  weapons,  and  that  all  bloodshed  was  to  be  avoided. 
"  Tell  the  king,"  replied  M.  d'Huillier, "  that  his  orders  shall  be 
obeyed ;  but  that  we  shall  all  be  assassinated." 

The  mob  grew  fiercer  when  it  became  known  that  La  Fayette 
and  his  regiment  were  approaching.  No  one  knew  what  course 
he  might  take,  but  the  ringleaders  of  the  rioters  resolved  on  a 
strenuous  effort  to  render  his  arrival  useless  by  their  previous  suc- 
cess. Guns  were  fired,  heavy  blows  were  dealt  on  the  railings  of 
the  inner  court-yard  and  on  the  gates ;  and  the  danger  seemed  so 
imminent  that  the  mob  might  force  its  way  into  the  palace,  that 
the  deputies  themselves  besought  the  king  to  delay  no  longer, 
but  to  retire  to  Rambouillet.  He  was  still  irresolute,  and  still 
trusting  to  his  plan  of  conciliating  by  non-resistance.  The  queen, 
though  more  earnest  than  ever  that  he  should  depart,  still  nobly 
adhered  to  her  own  view  of  duty,  and  refused  to  leave  him ;  but, 
hoping  that  he  might  change  his  mind,  she  gave  a  written  order 
to  keep  the  carriages  harnessed,  and  to  prepare  to  force  a  passage 
for  them  if  the  life  of  the  king  should  appear  to  be  in  danger ;  but, 
she  added,  they  were  not  to  be  used  if  she  alone  were  threatened. 

At  last,  when  it  was  nearly  midnight,  La  Fayette  arrived. 
With  a  singular  perverseness  of  folly,  at  a  time  when  every  mo- 
ment was  of  consequence,  he  had  halted  his  men  a  mile  out  of 
the  town  to  make  them  a  speech  in  praise  of  himself  and  his  own 
loyalty,  and  to  administer  to  them  an  oath  to  be  faithful  to  the 


280  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

nation,  to  the  law,  and  to  the  king  ;  an  oath  needless  if  they  were 
inclined  to  keep  it;  useless,  if  they  were  not;  and  in  the  state 
of  feeling  then  common,  mischievous  in  the  order  in  which  he 
ranged  the  powers  to  which  he  required  them  to  profess  alle- 
giance. At  last  he  reached  the  palace.  Leaving  his  men^  below, 
he  ascended  to  the  king's  apartments,  and,  laying  his  hand  on  his 
heart,  assured  the  king  that  he  had  no  more  loyal  servant  than 
himself.  Louis  was  not  given  to  sarcasm :  yet  some  of  the  by- 
standers fancied  that  there  was  a  tone  of  irony  in  his  voice  when 
in  reply  he  expressed  his  conviction  of  the  marquis's  sincerity ; 
and  perhaps  La  Fayette  thought  so  too,  for  he  proceeded  to  ha- 
rangue his  majesty  on  his  favorite  subject  of  his  own  courage ;  de- 
scribing the  dangers  which,  as  he  affirmed,  he  had  incurred  in  the 
course  of  the  day.  After  which  he  descended  into  the  court-yard 
to  assure  the  soldiers  that  the  king  had  promised  to  accede  to 
their  wishes ;  and  then  returned  to  the  royal  apartments  to  in- 
form the  king  that  contentment  was  restored,  and  that  he  himself 
would  be  responsible  for  the  tranquillity  of  the  night. 

The  royal  family,  exhausted  with  the  fatigues  of  so  terrible  a 
day,  retired  to  rest,  the  queen  expressly  enjoining  her  ladies  to 
follow  her  example.  Fortunately  they  were  too  anxious  for  her 
safety  to  obey  her,  and,  with  their  own  attendants,  kept  watch  in 
the  room  outside  her  bed-chamber.  But  La  Fayette,  in  spite  of 
the  responsibility  which  he  had  taken  upon  himself,  felt  no  such 
anxiety.  He  declared  himself  tired  and  sleepy ;  and,  leaving  the 
palace,  went  to  a  friend's  house  to  ask  for  a  bed.*  Yet  he  well 
knew  that  the  crowd  was  still  assembled  around  the  palace,  and 
was  increasing  in  violence.  Though  the  night  was  stormy  and 
wet,  the  rioters  sought  no  shelter  except  such  as  was  afforded  by  a 
hurried  resort  to  the  wine-shops  in  the  neighborhood,  where  they 
inflamed  their  intoxication,  and  from  which  they  soon  returned  to 
renew  their  savage  clamor  and  threats,  increasing  the  disorder  by 
keeping  up  a  frequent  fire  of  their  muskets.  Throughout  the 

*  There  is  some  uncertainty  where  La  Fayette  slept  that  night.  Lacretelle 
says  it  was  at  the  "  Maison  du  Prince  de  Poix,  fort  eloignee  du  chateau.'' 
Count  Dumas,  meaning  to  be  as  favorable  to  him  as  possible,  places  him  at 
the  Hotel  de  Noailles,  which  is  "  not  one  hundred  paces  from  the  iron  gates 
of  the  chapel "  ("  Memoirs  of  the  Count  de  Dumas,"  i.,  p.  159).  However,  the 
nearer  he  was  to  the  palace,  the  more  incomprehensible  it  is  that  he  should 
not  have  reached  the  palace  the  next  morning  till  nearly  eight  o'clock,  two 
hours  after  the  mob  had  forced  their  entrance  into  the  Cour  des  Princes. 


THE  MOB  ATTACKS  THE  PALACE.  281 

night  the  Due  d'Orleans  was  briskly  going  to  and  fro,  his  emissa- 
ries scattering  money  among  the  rioters,  who  seemed  to  have  no 
definite  purpose  or  plan,  till,  as  day  began  to  break,  one  of  the 
gates  leading  into  the  Princes'  Court  was  seen  to  be  open.  It 
had  been  intrusted  to  some  of  La  Fayette's  soldiers,  and  could 
not  have  been  opened  without  treachery.  The  crowd  poured  in, 
uttering  fiercer  threats  than  ever,  from  the  belief  that  their  prey 
was  within  their  reach.  There  was,  in  truth,  nothing  between 
them  and  the  staircase  which  led  to  the  royal  apartments  except 
two  gallant  gentlemen,  M.  des  Huttes  and  M.  Moreau,  the  sentries 
of  the  detachment  of  the  Body-guard  on  duty,  whose  quarters 
were  at  the  head  of  the  staircase  in  a  saloon  opposite  to  the 
queen's  chamber.  But  these  brave  men  were  worthy  of  the  best 
days  of  the  French  army.  The  more  formidable  the  mob,  and 
the  greater  the  danger,  the  more  imperative  to  their  loyal  hearts 
was  the  duty  to  defend  those  whose  safety  was  intrusted  to  their 
vigilance ;  and  with  so  dauntless  a  front  did  they  stand  to  their 
posts  that  for  a  moment  the  ruffians  recoiled  and  shrunk  from  at- 
tacking them,  till  D'Orleans  himself  came  forward,  waving  to 
them  with  his  hand  a  signal  to  force  the  way  in,  and  pointing  out 
to  them  which  way  to  take. 

What,  then,  could  two  men  effect  against  such  a  multitude  ? 
Des  Huttes  perished,  pierced  by  a  hundred  pikes,  and  torn  into 
pieces  by  his  blood-thirsty  assailants.  Moreau,  with  equal  valor, 
but  with  better  fortune,  backed  up  the  stairs,  fighting  so  desperate- 
ly as  he  retreated  that  he  gave  his  comrades  time  to  barricade  the 
doors  leading  to  the  queen's  apartments,  and  to  come  to  his  assist- 
ance. As  they  drew  him  back,  terribly  wounded,  into  the  guard- 
room, De  Varicourt  and  Durepaire  took  his  place.  De  Varicourt 
was  soon  slain,  but  Durepaire,  a  man  of  prodigious  strength  and 
prowess,  held  the  assassins  at  bay  for  some  time,  till  he  too  fell, 
reduced  to  helplessness  by  a  score  of  deep  wounds ;  when  he,  in 
his  turn,  was  replaced  by  Miomandre.  His  devotion  and  intrepid- 
ity equaled  that  of  his  comrades;  he  was  eminently  skillful  also 
in  the  use  of  his  weapons,  and  with  his  own  hand  he  struck  down 
many  of  his  assailants,  till  he  was  gradually  forced  back  by  num- 
bers, when  he  placed  his  musket  as  a  barrier  across  the  door-way, 
and  thus  still  kept  his  enemies  at  bay,  while  he  shouted  to  the 
queen's  ladies,  now  separated  from  him  by  but  a  single  partition, 
to  save  the  queen,  for  "  the  tigers  with  whom  he  was  struggling 
were  aiming  at  her  life." 


282  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

In  the  annals  of  the  ancient  chivalry  of  the  nation  it  had  been 
recorded  as  the  most  brilliant  feat  of  Bayard,  that,  on  a  bridge  of 
the  Garigliano,  he  had  for  a  while,  with  his  single  arm,  stemmed 
the  onset  of  two  hundred  Spaniards  ;  and  that  glorious  exploit  of 
the  model  hero  of  the  nation  had  never  been  more  faithfully  cop- 
ied and  more  nobly  rivaled  than  it  was  on  this  morning  of  shame 
and  danger  by  Miomandre  and  his  intrepid  comrades,  as  they  suc- 
cessively stepped  into  the  breach  to  fight  against  those  whom  he 
truly  called,  not  men,  but  tigers.  It  was  but  a  brief  moment  be- 
fore he  too  was  struck  down  ;  but  he  had  gained  for  the  ladies  a 
respite  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  secure  the  safety  of  their  roy- 
al mistress.  They  roused  her  from  her  bed,  for  her  fatigue  had 
been  so  great  that  she  had  hitherto  slept  soundly  through  the  up- 
roar, and  hurried  her  off  to  the  apartments  of  the  king,  who,  hav- 
ing been  just  similarly  awakened,  was  coming  to  seek  her ;  and  in 
a  few  minutes  the  whole  family  was  collected  in  his  antechamber ; 
while  the  Body-guard  occupied  the  queen's  bedroom,  and  the  riot- 
ers, balked  of  their  intended  victim,  were  pillaging  the  different 
rooms  into  which  they  had  been  able  to  make  their  way.  Luck- 
ily, La  Fayette  was  still  absent :  he  was  having  his  hair  dressed 
with  great  composure,  while  the  mob,  for  whose  contentment  and 
orderly  behavior  he  had  vouched,  was  plundering  the  royal  palace 
and  seeking  its  owners  to  murder  them ;  and  in  his  absence  the 
Marquis  de  Vaudreuil  and  a  body  of  nobles  took  upon  themselves 
the  office  of  defenders  of  the  crown,  and,  going  down  to  the 
court-yard,  reproached  the  National  Guard  with  their  inaction  at 
such  a  moment  of  danger,  and  with  their  manifest  sympathy  with 
the  rioters.  At  first,  out  of  mere  shame,  the  National  Guard  at- 
tempted to  justify  themselves :  "  they  had  been  told,"  they  said, 
"  that  the  Body-guard  were  the  aggressors ;  that  they  had  attack- 
ed the  people."  "Do  you  pretend  to  believe,"  said  the  gallant 
marquis,  "  that  two  hundred  men  have  been  mad  enough  to  at- 
tack thirty  thousand  ?"  The  argument  was  irresistible ;  they  de- 
clared that  if  the  Body-guard  would  assume  the  tricolor,  they 
would  stand  by  them  as  brothers.  And,  by  a  reaction  not  un- 
common at  such  times  of  excitement,  the  two  regiments  became 
reconciled  in  a  moment.  As  no  tricolor  cockades  could  be  pro- 
cured, they  exchanged  shakos,  and,  in  many  cases,  arms.  And 
presently,  when  the  Coup-tetes,  after  mutilating  the  bodies  of  two 
of  the  Body-guard  who  had  been  killed  on  the  previous  evening, 
were  preparing  to  murder  two  or  three  more  who  had  fallen  into 


HEROIC  DEMEANOR  OF  THE  QUEEN.  283 

their  hands,  the  National  Guard  dashed  to  their  rescue,  shouting 
out,  with  a  curious  identification  of  their  force  with  the  old 
French  army,  that  "  they  would  save  the  Body-guard  who  saved 
them  at  Fontenoy,"  and  brought  them  off  unhurt. 

Balked  of  their  expected  prey,  the  rioters  grew  more  furious 
than  ever ;  in  useless  wrath  they  kept  firing  against  the  walls  of 
the  palace,  and  shouting  out  a  demand  for  the  queen  to  show  her- 
self. She,  with  her  children,  was  still  in  the  king's  apartment, 
where  the  princesses,  the  ministers,  and  a  few  courtiers  were  also 
assembled.  Necker,  in  an  agony  of  terror  and  distress,  sat  with 
his  face  buried  in  his  hands,  unable  to  offer  any  advice ;  La  Fay- 
ette,  who  had  just  arrived,  dwelt  upon  the  dangers  which  he  had 
run,  though  no  one  else  knew  what  they  were,  and  assured  the 
king  of  the  power  which  he  still  possessed  to  allay  the  tumult,  if 
the  reasonable  demands  of  the  people  (as  he  called  them)  were 
granted.  Marie  Antoinette  alone  was  undaunted  and  calm;  or, 
at  least,  if  in  the  depths  of  her  woman's  heart  she  felt  terror  at 
the  sanguinary  and  obscene  threats  of  her  ruffianly  enemies,  she 
scorned  to  show  it.  When  the  firing  began,  M.  de  Luzerne,  one 
of  the  ministers,  had  quietly  placed  himself  between  her  and  the 
window ;  but,  while  she  thanked  him  for  his  devotion,  she  beg- 
ged him  to  retire,  saying,  with  her  habitually  gracious  courtesy, 
that  it  was  her  place  to  be  there,*  not  his,  since  the  king  could 
not  afford  to  have  so  faithful  a  servant  endangered.  And  now, 
holding  her  little  son  and  daughter,  one  in  each  hand,  she  stepped 
out  on  the  balcony,  to  confront  those  who  were  shouting  for  her 
blood.  "  No  children  !"  was  their  cry.  She  led  the  dauphin  and 
his  sister  back  into  the  room,  and,  returning  to  the  balcony,  stood 
before  them  alone,  with  her  hands  crossed  and  her  eyes  looking 
up  to  heaven,  as  one  who  expected  instant  death,  with  a  firmness 
as  far  removed  from  defiance  as  from  supplication.  Even  those 
ruthless  miscreants  were  awed  by  her  magnanimous  fearlessness ; 
not  a  shot  was  fired ;  for  a  moment  it  seemed  as  if  her  enemies 
had  become  her  partisans.  Loud  shouts  of  "  Bravo !"  and  "  Long 
live  the  queen !"  were  heard  on  all  sides ;  and  one  ruffian,  who 
raised  his  gun  to  take  aim  at  her,  had  his  weapon  beaten  down 
by  those  who  stood  near  him,  and  ran  some  risk  of  being  himself 
sacrificed  to  their  indignation.  But  this  impulse  of  respect,  like 
other  impulses  of  such  a  people,  was  short-lived,  and  presently  the 

*  Weber,  L,  p.  218. 


284  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

multitude  began  to  raise  a  shout,  which  expressed  the  original 
purpose  which  had  led  the  majority  to  march  upon  Versailles. 
"  To  Paris !"  was  the  cry,  and  again  La  Fayette  volunteered  his 
advice,  urging  the  king  to  comply  with  the  request.  By  this 
time  Louis  had  learned  the  value  of  the  marquis's  loyalty.  But 
he  had  no  alternative.  It  was  evident  that  the  rioters  had  the 
power  of  compelling  compliance  with  their  demand.  And  ac- 
cordingly he  authorized  the  marquis  to  promise  that  he  would  re- 
move his  family  to  Paris,  and  a  few  minutes  afterward  he  himself 
went  out  on  the  balcony  with  the  queen,  and  himself  announced 
his  intention,  with  the  view  of  giving  his  act  a  greater  appearance 
of  being  voluntarily  resolved  upon. 

Soon  after  midday  he  set  out,  accompanied  by  the  queen,  his 
brother  the  Count  de  Provence,  his  sister  the  Princess  Elizabeth, 
and  his  children.  It  was  a  strange  and  shameful  retinue  that  es- 
corted the  King  of  France  to  his  capital.  One  party  of  the  riot- 
ers, with  Maillard  and  another  ruffian  named  Jourdan,  the  chief 
of  the  Coupe-tetes,  at  their  head,  had  started  two  hours  before, 
bearing  aloft  in  triumph  the  heads  of  the  mangled  Body-guards, 
and  combining  such  hideous  mockery  with  their  barbarity  that 
they  halted  at  Sevres  to  compel  a  barber  to  dress  the  hair  on  the 
lifeless  skulls.  And  now  the  royal  carriage  was  surrounded  by  a 
vast  and  confused  medley ;  market-women  and  the  rest  of  the  fe- 
male rabble,  with  drunken  gangs  of  the  ruffians  who  had  stormed 
the  palace  in  the  morning,  still  brandishing  their  weapons,  or  bear- 
ing loaves  of  bread  on  their  pike-heads,  and  singing  out  that  they 
should  all  have  enough  of  bread  now,  since  they  were  bringing 
the  baker,  the  bakeress,  and  the  baker's  boy  to  Paris.*  The  only 
part  of  the  procession  that  bore  even  a  decent  appearance  was  a 
small  escort  of  different  regiments  —  the  Guards,  the  National 
Guards,  and  the  Body-guards ;  many  of  the  latter  still  bleeding 
from  the  wounds  which  they  had  received  in  the  conflict  and  tu- 
mult of  the  morning.  A  train  of  carriages  containing  a  depu- 
tation of  the  members  of  the  Assembly  also  followed;  Mirabeau 
himself  having  just  carried  a  motion  that  the  Assembly  was  in- 
separable from  the  king,  and  that  wherever  he  was  there  must  be 
the  place  of  meeting  for  the  great  council  of  the  nation.  Yet, 
in  spite  of  the  confidence  which  their  presence  might  have  been 


*  Le  Boulanger  (the  king),  la  Boulangere  (the  queen),  et  le  petit  mitron 
(the  dauphin). 


EFFRONTERY  OFJBAILLY,  AND  DIGNITY  OF  LOUIS.    285 

expected  to  diffuse  among  the  mob,  and  in  spite  of  the  hopes  of 
coming  plenty  which  the  rioters  themselves  announced,  the  royal 
party  was  not  even  yet  safe  from  further  attacks.  Some  ruffians 
stabbed  at  the  royal  carriage  as  it  passed  with  their  pikes,  and 
several  shots  were  fired  at  it,  though  fortunately  they  missed  their 
aim  and  no  one  was  injured.* 

To  the  queen  the  journey  was  more  painful  than  to  any  one  else. 
A  few  weeks  before  she  had  congratulated  Mademoiselle  de  Lam- 
balle  on  not  being  a  mother — perhaps  the  bitterest  exclamation 
that  grief  and  anxiety  ever  wrung  from  her  lips;  and  now  the 
keenest  anxieties  of  a  mother  were  indeed  added  to  those  of  a 
queen.  The  procession  moved  with  painful  slowness.  No  pro- 
visions had  been  taken  in  the  carriage,  and  the  little  dauphin  was 
suffering  from  hunger  and  begging  for  some  food.  Tears,  which 
her  own  danger  could  not  bring  to  her  eyes,  flowed  plentifully  as 
she  witnessed  the  suffering  of  her  child.  She  could  only  beg  him 
to  bear  his  privations  with  patience ;  and  she  had  the  reward  of 
the  pains  she  had  always  taken  to  inspire  him  with  confidence  in 
her,  in  the  fortitude  with  which,  for  the  rest  of  the  day,  he  bore 
what  to  children  of  his  age  is  probably  the  severest  hardship  to 
which  they  can  be  exposed.f 

So  vast  and  disorderly  was  the  procession  that  it  was  nine 
o'clock  at  night  before  it  reached  Paris.  Bailly  again  met  the 
royal  carriage  at  the  barrier,  and,  re-assuming  the  tone  of  coarse 
insult  which  he  had  adopted  on  the  king's  previous  visit,  had  the 
effrontery  to  describe  the  day,  so  full  of  horror  to  every  one,  and 
of  humiliation  and  agony  to  those  whom  he  was  addressing,  as  a 
glorious  day.  It  was  at  such  moments  as  these  that  Louis's  im- 
passibility assumed  the  character  of  dignity.  He  disdained  to 
notice  the  mayor's  insolence,  and  briefly  answered  that  it  was  al- 
ways with  pleasure  and  with  confidence  that  he  found  himself 
among  the  inhabitants  of  his  good  city  of  Paris.  He  proceeded 
to  the  H6tel  de  Ville,  where  the  council  of  civic  magistrates  was 
sitting ;  and  where  the  president  addressed  him  in  language  which 
afforded  a  marked  contrast  to  that  of  the  mayor,  calling  him  "  an 
adored  father  who  had  come  to  visit  the  place  where  he  could 
meet  with  the  greatest  number  of  his  children."  And  it  seemed 
as  if  Bailly  himself  had  become  in  some  degree  ashamed  of  his 


*  "Souvenirs  de  la  Marquise  de  CrSquy," riL, p.  123. 
f  Weber,  ii.,  p.  226. 


286  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

insolence ;  for  now,  when  Louis  desired  him,  in  reply  to  the  pres- 
ident's address,  to  repeat  the  answer  which  he  had  made  to  him 
at  the  barrier,  he  merely  said  that  the  king  had  come  with  pleas- 
ure among  the  Parisians.  "  The  king,  sir,"  interrupted  the  queen, 
"added,  'and  with  confidence.'"  "Gentlemen,"  said  Bailly, 
"you  hear  her  majesty's  words.  You  are  happier  in  doing  so 
than  if  I  myself  had  uttered  them."  The  whole  company  burst 
into  one  rapturous  cheer,  and  at  their  request  the  king  and  queen 
showed  themselves  for  a  few  minutes  at  the  windows,  beneath 
which,  late  as  the  hour  was,  a  vast  multitude  was  still  collected, 
which  received  them  with  vociferous  cheers.  And  then  the  royal 
family,  quitting  the  H6tel,  drove  to  the  Tuileries,  where  their  at- 
tendants had  been  hastily  making  such  preparations  as  a  few 
hours  allowed  for  their  reception. 

Since  the  completion  of  the  Palace  at  Versailles  the  Tuileries 
had  been  almost  deserted.*  The  paint  and  gilding  were  tarnish- 
ed, the  curtains  were  faded,  many  most  necessary  articles  of  fur- 
niture were  altogether  wanting;  and  the  whole  was  so  shabby 
that  it  attracted  the  notice  of  even  the  little  dauphin.  "  How 
bad,  mamma,"  said  he,  "  every  thing  looks  here."  "  My  boy," 
she  replied,  "  Louis  XIV.  lived  here  comfortably  enough."  But 
they  had  not  yet  decided  on  making  it  their  permanent  residence. 
La  Fayette,  who  had  tried  to  induce  the  king  to  promise  to  do  so, 
had  been  distinctly  refused ;  and  for  some  days  Louis  did  not 
make  up  his  mind.  But,  after  a  time,  the  fear,  if  he  should  pro- 
pose to  return  to  Versailles,  of  being  met  by  an  opposition  on  the 
part  of  the  Assembly  or  the  civic  magistrates,  which  he  might  be 
unable  to  surmount,  or,  if  he  should  again  settle  there,  of  his  ab- 
sence from  the  city  furnishing  a  pretext  for  fresh  tumults,  caused 
him  to  announce  his  intention  of  making  Paris  his  principal  abode 
for  the  future.  He  gave  orders  for  the  removal  of  some  furni- 
ture and  of  the  queen's  library  to  the  Tuileries ;  and,  with  some- 
thing of  the  apathy  of  despair,  began  to  reconcile  himself  to  his 
new  abode  and  his  changed  position. 

*  "  Souvenirs  de  Quarante  Ans,"  p.  47. 


DREAD  FOREBODING  OF  THE  QUEEN.  287 


I 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Feelings  of  Marie  Antoinette  on  coming  to  the  Tuileries. — Her  Tact  in  win- 
ning the  Hearts  of  the  Common  People. — Mirabeau  changes  his  Views. — 
Quarrel  between  La  Fayette  and  the  Due  d'Orleans. — Mirabeau  desires  to 
offer  his  Services  to  the  Queen. — Riots  in  Paris. — Murder  of  Fra^ois. — 
The  Assembly  pass  a  Vote  prohibiting  any  Member  from  taking  Office. — 
The  Emigration.  —  Death  of  the  Emperor  Joseph  II.  —  Investigation  into 
the  Riots  of  October. — The  Queen  refuses  to  give  Evidence. — Violent  Pro- 
ceedings in  the  Assembly. — Execution  of  the  Marquis  de  Favras. 

THE  comment  made  by  Marie  Antoinette  on  quitting  Versailles 
was  that  "  they  were  undone ;  they  were  being  dragged  off,  per- 
haps to  death,  which  was  never  far  removed  from  captive  sover- 
eigns ;"*  and  such  henceforward  was  her  prevailing  feeling.  She 
may  occasionally,  prompted  by  her  own  innate  courage  and  san- 
guineness  of  disposition,  have  cherished  a  short-lived  hope,  found- 
ed on  a  consciousness  of  the  king's  and  her  own  purity  of  inten- 
tion, or  on  a  belief,  which  she  never  wholly  discarded,  in  the  nat- 
ural goodness  of  heart  of  the  French  people  when  not  led  astray 
by  demagogues;  and  of  their  impulsive  levity  of  disposition, 
which  seemed  to  make  no  change  of  temper  on  their  part  impos- 
sible ;  but  her  general  feeling  was  one  of  humiliation  for  the  past 
and  despair  for  the  future.  Not  only  did  the  example  of  Charles 
L,  whose  fate  was  ever  before  her  eyes,  fill  her  with  dread  for  her 
husband's  life  (to  her  own  danger  she  never  gave  a  thought),  but 
she  felt  also  that  the  cause  and  principle  of  royalty  had  been  de- 
graded by  the  shameful  scenes  through  which  she  had  lately  pass- 
ed ;  and  we  shall  fail  to  do  justice  to  the  patience,  fortitude,  and 
energy  of  her  conduct  during  the  remainder  of  her  life,  if  we  al- 
low ourselves  to  forget  that  these  high  qualities  were  maintained 
and  exerted  in  spite  of  the  most  depressing  circumstances  and 
the  most  discouraging  convictions;  that  she  was  struggling  be- 
cause it  was  her  duty  to  struggle  for  her  husband's  honor  and  her 
child's  inheritance;  but  that  she  was  never  long  sustained  by 

*  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  zv. 


288  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

that  incentive  which,  with  so  many,  is  absolutely  indispensable  to 
steady  and  useful  exertion — the  anticipation  of  eventual  success. 
A  letter  which  the  very  next  morning  she  wrote  to  Mercy,  who 
fortunately  still  retained  his  old  post  as  embassador,  shows  the 
courage  with  which  she  still  caught  at  every  circumstance  which 
seemed  in  the  least  hopeful ;  and  with  what  unfaltering  tact  she 
sought  every  opportunity  of  acting  on  the  impulsiveness  which 
she  regarded  as  one  chief  characteristic  of  the  French  people. 

"  October  7th,  1789. 

"  I  am  quite  well.  You  may  be  easy  about  me.  If  we  could 
only  forget  where  we  are  and  how  we  came  here,  we  ought  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  feelings  of  the  people,  especially  this  morning. 
I  hope,  if  bread  does  not  fall  short,  that  many  things  will  return 
to  their  proper  order.  I  speak  to  the  people,  militia,  fish-women, 
and  all :  all  offer  me  their  hands ;  I  give  them  mine.  In  the  Ho- 
tel de  Ville  I  was  personally  well  received.  The  people  this  morn- 
ing begged  us  to  remain  here.  I  answered  them,  speaking  for 
the  king,  who  was  by  my  side,  that  it  depended  on  themselves 
whether  we  remained  ;  that  we  desired  nothing  better ;  that  all  an- 
imosities must  be  laid  aside,;  that  the  slightest  renewal  of  blood- 
shed would  make  us  flee  with  horror.  Those  who  were  near- 
est to  me  swore  that  all  that  was  over.  I  told  the  fish-women  to 
go  and  tell  others  all  that  we  had  just  said  to  one  another."* 

And  a  day  or  two  later,  on  the  10th,  even  while  giving  fuller 
expression  to  her  feelings  of  unhappiness,  and  of  disgust  at  the 
events  of  the  past  week,  as  to  which  she  assures  Mercy  that  "  no 
description  could  be  exaggerated ;  on  the  contrary,  that  any  ac- 
count must  fall  far  short  of  what  the  king  and  she  had  seen  and 
experienced,"  she  yet  repeats  that  "  she  hopes  to  bring  back  to  a 
right  feeling  the  honest  and  sound  portion  of  the  citizens  and 
people.  Unhappily,  however,"  as  she  adds,  "  they  are  not  the 
most  numerous  body.  Still,  with  gentleness  and  unwearied  pa- 
tience, she  may  hope  that  at  least  she  shall  succeed  in  doing  away 
with  the  horrible  distrust  which  occupies  every  mind,  and  which 
has  dragged  the  king  and  herself  into  the  gulf  in  which  they  are 
at  present."  So  keen  at  this  time  was  her  feeling  that  one  prin- 
cipal cause  of  their  miseries  was  the  unjust  distrust  which  the  cit- 
izens in  general  conceived  of  the  views  and  designs  of  the  court, 

*  F.  de  Conches,  p.  264. 


INSOLENCE  OF  A  VIRAGO  TO  HER  MAJESTY.          289 

that  she  desires  Mercy  not  to  try  to  see  her;  and,  while  she  de- 
scribes the  scantiness  of  the  accommodation  which  her  attendants 
had  as  yet  been  able  to  provide  for  her,  so  that  Madame  Royale 
had  a  bed  in  her  dressing-room,  and  the  little  dauphin  was  in  her 
own  room,  she  finds  advantage  in  these  arrangements,  inconven- 
ient as  they  were,  since  they  prevented  any  suspicion  from  arising 
'  that  she  was  giving  audiences  which  she  desired  to  keep  secret. 

She  did  not  overrate  the  impression  which  she  had  made  on 
the  people ;  and  her  faithful  attendant,  Madame  Campan,  has  pre- 
served more  minute  details  of  the  events  of  the  7th  than  she  her- 
self reported  to  the  embassador.  She  was  hardly  dressed  when  a 
huge  crowd  collected  on  the  terrace  under  her  window,  shouting 
for  her  to  show  herself;  and,  when  she  came  forward,  they  be- 
gan to  accost  her  in  a  mingled  tone  of  expostulation  and  menace. 
"  She  must  drive  away  the  courtiers  who  were  the  ruin  of  kings. 
She  must  love  the  inhabitants  of  her  good  city."  She  replied 
"  that  she  had  always  felt  so  toward  them ;  she  had  loved  them 
while  at  Versailles ;  she  should  continue  to  love  them  at  Paris.'' 
'Ah,"  interrupted  a  virago,  hardier  than  her  companions,  "  but 
on  the  14th  of  July  you  would  have  besieged  and  bombarded  the 
city  ;  and  on  the  6th  of  October  you  wanted  to  flee  to  the  front- 
er."  She  answered,  in  the  gentlest  tone,  that  "these  were  idle 

)ries,  which  they  were  wrong  to  believe;  tales  like  these  were 
rhat  caused  at  once  the  misery  of  the  people  and  that  of  the  best 
)f  kings."  Another  woman  addressed  her  in  German.  Marie 
Antoinette  declared  that "  she  did  not  understand  what  she  said ; 
lat  she  had  become  so  completely  French  that  she  had  forgotten 
ler  native  language  ;"  and  the  compliment  to  their  country  fairly 
vanquished  them.  They  received  it  with  shouts  of  "  Bravo,"  and 
with  loud  clapping  of  their  hands.  They  begged  the  ribbons  and 
flowers  of  her  bonnet.  She  took  them  off  with  her  own  hand 
and  distributed  them  among  them ;  and  they  divided  the  spoils 
with  thankful  exultation,  smiling,  waving  their  hands,  and  cry- 
ing out,  "  Long  live  Marie  Antoinette !  Long  live  our  good 
queen  !"* 

For  a  time  it  seemed  as  if  the  fortunes  of  the  king  and  country 
were  being  weighed  in  an  uncertain  balance.  One  day  some  cir- 
cumstances seemed  to  hold  out  a  prospect  of  the  re-establishment 
of  tranquillity,  and  of  the  return  of  the  masses  to  a  better  feeling. 

*  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  XT. 
19 


290  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

The  next  day  these  favorable  appearances  were  more  than  coun- 
terbalanced by  fresh  evidences  of  the  increasing  power  of  the  fac- 
tious and  unscrupulous  demagogues.  It  was  greatly  in  favor  of 
the  crown  that  the  triumph  of  the  mob  on  the  6th  of  October 
had  led  to  violent  quarrels  between  the  Due  d'Orleans,  La  Fay- 
ette,  and  Mirabeau.  La  Fayette  had  charged  the  duke  with  hav- 
ing entered  into  a  plot  to  assassinate  him,  and  threatened  to  im- 
peach him  formally  if  he  did  not  at  once  quit  the  kingdom.* 
The  duke  trembled  and  consented,  easily  procuring  from  the  min- 
isters, who  were  glad  to  get  rid  of  him,  a  diplomatic  mission  to 
England  as  a  pretext  for  his  departure ;  and  Mirabeau,  who  de- 
spised both  the  duke  and  the  marquis,  full  of  contempt  for  the 
pusillanimity  which  the  former  had  shown  in  the  quarrel,  aban- 
doned all  idea.,  of  placing  him  on  his  cousin's  throne.  "  Make 
him  my  king!"  he  exclaimed;  "I  would  not  have  him  for  my 
valet," 

Emboldened  by  his  success  with  the  duke,  La  Fayette,  who  had 
great  confidence  in  his  own  address,  next  tried  to  win  over  or  to 
get  rid  of  Mirabeau  himself.  He  proposed  to  obtain  an  embassy 
for  him  also.  The  suggestion  of  what  was  clearly  an  honorable 
exile  in  disguise  was  at  once  declined.f  He  then  offered  him  a 
large  sum  of  money,  for  at  that  moment  he  had  the  entire  dis- 
posal of  the  civil  list ;  but  he  found  that  the  great  orator  was 
disinclined  to  connect  himself  with  him  in  any  way,  much  more 
to  lay  himself  under  any  obligation  to  him.  In  fact,  Mirabeau 
was  at  this  moment  hoping  to  obtain  a  post  in  the  home  admin- 
istration, where,  if  he  could  once  succeed  in  procuring  a  footing, 
he  had  no  doubt  of  soon  obtaining  the  entire  mastery ;  and  the 
royal  family  was  hardly  settled  at  the  Tuileries  before  he  applied 
to  his  friend,  the  Count  de  la  Marck,  whom  he  rightly  believed  to 
enjoy  the  queen's  good  opinion,  begging  him  to  express  to  her  his 
ardent  wish  to  serve  her.  He  even  drew  up  a  long  memorial  on 
the  existing  state  of  affairs,  indicating  the  line  of  conduct  which, 
in  his  opinion,  the  king  ought  to  pursue ;  the  leading  feature  of 
which  was  an  early  departure  from  Paris  to  some  city  at  no  great 
distance,  that  he  might  be  safe  and  free ;  while  in  the  capital  it 
was  evident  that  he  was  neither.  And  the  step  which  he  thus 

*  See  a  letter  from  M.  Huber  to  Lord  Auckland,  "  Journal  and  Correspond- 
ence of  Lord  Auckland,"  ii.,  p.  365. 

f  La  Marck  et  Mirabeau,  ii.,  pp.  90-93,  254. 


FRESH  RIOTS  IN  PARIS.  291 

recommended  at  the  outset  .deserves  attention  as  being  also  that 
on  which  a  year  later  he  still  insisted  as  the  indispensable  pre- 
liminary to  whatever  line  of  conduct  might  be  decided  on. 

But  at  this  moment  his  advice  never  reached  those  for  whom 
it  was  intended.  La  Marck,  with  all  his  good-will  both  to  his 
friend  and  to  the  court,  could  not  venture  to  bring  before  the 
queen's  notice  the  name  of  one  who,  only  a  few  days  before,  had 
denounced  her  in  the  foulest  manner  in  the  Assembly  for  having 
appeared  at  the  soldiers'  banquet,  and  whom  she  with  her  own 
eyes  had  beheld  uniting  with  the  assailants  of  the  palace.  He 
thought  it  more  politic,  even  for  the  eventual  attainment  of  his 
friend's  objects,  to  content  himself  for  the  time  with  giving  the 
memorial  and  stating  the  views  of  the  writer  to  the  Count  de 
Provence ;  and  that  prince  declared  that  it  would  be  useless  to 
bring  it  to  the  knowledge  of  either  king  or  queen :  "  that  the 
queen  had  not  sufficient  influence  over  her  husband  to  induce 
him  to  adopt  such  a  plan;"  and  he  even  hinted  that  at  times 
Louis  was  disposed  to  be  jealous  of  her  appearing  to  influence 
him. 

But  if  these  circumstances — the  quarrel  between  the  enemies  of 
the  court,  and  the  conversion  of  one  more  able  and  formidable 
than  either — were  in  the  king's  favor,  other  events  which  took 
place  in  the  same  few  weeks  were  full  of  mischief  and  danger. 
Before  the  end  of  the  month  fresh  riots  broke  out  in  Paris. 
Bread,  the  supply  of  which  Marie  Antoinette,  as  we  have  seen, 
rightly  regarded  as  a  matter  of  the  first  importance  to  the  tran- 
quillity of  the  city,  continued  scarce  and  dear ;  and  the  mob 
broke  open  the  bakers'  shops,  and  murdered  one  baker,  a  man 
named  Francois,  with  a  ferocity  more  terrible  than  they  had  even 
shown  toward  De  Launay,  or  the  guards  at  Versailles.  They  tore 
his  body  to  pieces,  and,  having  cut  off  his  head,  compelled  his 
wife  to  kiss  the  scarcely  cold  lips,  and  then  left  her  fainting  on 
the  pavement  still  covered  with  his  blood.  Even  La  Fayette  was 
horror-stricken  at  such  brutality.  It  was  the  only  occasion  on 
which  he  did  his  duty  during  the  whole  progress  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. He  came  down  with  a  company  of  the  National  Guard, 
dispersed  the  rioters,  seized  the  ruffian  who  was  bearing  aloft  the 
head  of  the  murdered  man  on  a  pole,  and  caused  him  to  be 
hanged  the  next  day.  And  during  the  next  few  weeks  he  more 
than  once  brought  his  soldiers  to  the  support  of  the  civil  power, 
and  inflicted  summary  punishment  on  gangs  of  miscreants,  whose 


292  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

idea  of  reform  was  a  state  of  things  which  should  afford  impuni- 
ty to  crime. 

But  in  the  next  month  the  Assembly  dealt  a  heavier  blow  on 
the  king's  authority  than  could  be  inflicted  by  the  worst  excesses 
of  an  informal  mob — they  passed  a  resolution  prohibiting  any 
of  its  members  from  accepting  any  office  in  the  administration : 
it  was  an  imitation  of  the  self-denying  ordinance  into  which  Crom- 
well had  tricked  the  English  Parliament ;  and,  though  bearing  an 
appearance  of  disinterestedness  in  closing  the  access  to  official 
emoluments  and  honors  against  themselves,  was  in  reality  an  in- 
jury to  the  king,  as  depriving  him  of  his  right  to  select  his  min- 
isters from  the  entire  body  of  the  nation  ;  and  to  the  nation  itself, 
as  preventing  it  from  obtaining  the  services  of  those  who  might 
be  presumed  to  be  its  ablest  citizens,  as  having  been  already  se- 
lected as  its  representatives. 

But  a  far  more  irreparable  injury  than  any  that  could  be  in- 
flicted on  the  court  by  either  populace  or  Assembly  came  from 
its  friends.  We  have  seen  that  the  Count  d'Artois,  with  some 
nobles  who  had  especial  reason  to  fear  the  enmity  of  the  Paris- 
ians, had  fled  from  the  country  in  July ;  and  now  their  example 
was  followed  by  a  vast  number  of  the  higher  classes,  several  of 
them  having  hitherto  been  prominent  as  the  leaders  of  the  Mod- 
erate or  Constitutional  section  of  the  Assembly — men  who  had 
no  grounds  for  complaining  that,  except  in  one  or  two  instances, 
at  moments  of  extraordinary  excitement,  their  influence  had  been 
overborne,  but  who  now  yielded  to  an  infectious  panic.  Before 
the  end  of  the  year  more  than  three  hundred  deputies  had  re- 
signed their  seats  and  quit  the  country ;  salving  over  to  them- 
selves the  dereliction  of  the  duties  which  a  few  months  before 
they  had  voluntarily  sought,  and  their  performance  of  which  was 
now  a  more  imperative  duty  than  ever,  by  denunciations  of  the 
crimes  which  had  been  committed,  and  which  they  had  found 
themselves  unable  to  prevent.  They  did  not  see  that  their  pusil- 
lanimous flight  must  lead  to  a  continuance  of  such  atrocities,  leav- 
ing, as  it  did,  the  undisputed  sway  in  the  Assembly  to  those  very 
men  who  had  been  the  authors  of  the  outrages  of  which  they 
complained.  They  were,  in  fact,  insuring  the  ruin  of  all  that  they 
most  wished  to  preserve  ;  for,  in  the  progress  of  the  debates  in 
the  Assembly  during  the  winter,  many  questions  of  the  most  vital 
importance  were  decided  by  very  small  majorities,  which  their 
presence  would  have  turned  into  minorities.  The  greater  the 


THE  EMIGRATION.  293 

danger  was,  the  more  irresistible  they  ought  to  have  felt  the 
obligation  to  stand  to  the  last  by  the  cause  of  which  they  were 
the  legitimate  champions ;  and  the  final  triumph  of  the  Jacobin 
party  owed  hardly  more  to  the  energy  of  its  leaders  than  to  the 
cowardly  and  inglorious  flight  of  the  princes  and  nobles  who 
left  the  field  open  without  resistance  to  their  wickedness  and  au- 
dacity. 

It  was  a  melancholy  winter  that  the  queen  now  passed.  So 
far  as  she  was  able,  she  diverted  her  mind  from  political  anxie- 
ties by  devoting  much  of  her  time  to  the  education  of  her  chil- 
dren. A  little  plot  of  ground  was  railed  off  in  the  garden  of  the 
Tuileries  for  the  dauphin's*  amusement ;  and  one  of  her  favorite 
relaxations  was  to  watch  him  working  at  the  flower-beds  himself 
with  his  little  hoe  and  rake ;  though,  as  if  to  mark  that  they  were 
in  fact  prisoners,  both  she  and  he  were  followed  wherever  they 
went  by  grenadiers  of  the  city -guard,  and  were  not  allowed  to 
dispense  with  their  attendance  for  a  single  moment.  Marie  An- 
toinette had  reason  to  complain  that  she  was  watched  as  a  crimi- 
nal.f  Sad  as  she  was  at  heart,  she  was  not  allowed  the  comfort 
of  privacy  and  retirement.  She  was  forced  to  hold  receptions  for 
the  nobles  and  chief  citizens,  and  as  the  court  was  now  formally 
established  at  the  Tuileries,  she  dined  every  week  in  public  with 
the  king ;  but  she  steadily  resisted  the  entreaties  of  some  of  the 
ministers  and  courtiers  to  visit  the  theatre,  thinking,  with  great 
justice,  that  an  attendance  at  public  spectacles  of  that  character 
would  have  had  an  appearance  of  gayety,  as  unbecoming,  at  such 
a  period  of  anxiety,  as  it  was  inconsistent  with  her  feelings ;  and 
before  the  end  of  the  winter  she  sustained  a  fresh  affliction  in  the 
loss  of  her  brother  the  emperor  ;J  whose  death  bore  with  it  the 
Iditional  aggravation  of  depriving  her  of  a  counselor  whose  ad- 
rice  she  valued,  and  of  an  ally  on  whose  active  aid  she  believed 

it  she  could  rely  far  more  than  she  could  on  that  of  their  broth- 
er Leopold,  who  now  succeeded  to  the  imperial  throne. 

Not  that  Leopold  can  be  charged  with  indifference  to  his  sis- 
ter's welfare.  In  the  very  week  of  his  accession  to  the  throne  he 
wrote  to  her  with  great  affection,  assuring  her  of  his  devotion  to 
her  interests,  and  expressing  his  desire  to  correspond  with  her  in 
the  most  unreserved  confidence.  But  the  same  letter  shows  that 


*  "Arthur  Young's  Travels,"  etc.,  p.  264  ;  date,  Paris,  January  4th,  1790. 
f  Feuillet  de  Conches,  iii.,  p.  229.  \  Joseph  died  February  20th. 


294  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

as  yet  he  knew  but  very  little  of  her  ;*  and  that  he  regarded  the 
difficulties  in  which  some  of  Joseph's  recent  measures  had  in- 
volved the  Imperial  Government  as  sufficiently  serious  to  engross 
his  attention.  A  few  extracts  from  her  reply  are  worth  preserv- 
ing, as  proving  how  steadily  in  her  conduct  and  language  to  ev- 
ery one  she  adhered  to  her  rule  of  concealing  her  husband's  de- 
fects, and  putting  him  forward  as  the  first  person  on  whose  wishes 
and  directions  her  own  conduct  must  depend.  It  also  shows 
what  advances  she  was  herself  making  in  the  perception  of  the 
true  character  of  the  crisis,  so  far  as  the  objects  of  the  few  honest 
members  who  still  remained  in  the  Assembly  were  concerned,  and 
the  extent  to  which  she  was  trying  to  reconcile  herself  to  some 
curtailment  of  her  husband's  former  authority. 

Thanking  him  for  the  assurance  of  his  friendship,  she  says: 
"  Believe  me,  my  dear  brother,  we  shall  always  be  worthy  of  it. 
I  say  we,  because  I  do  not  separate  the  king  from  myself.  He 
was  touched  by  your  letter,  as  I  was  myself,  and  bids  me  assure 
you  of  this.  His  heart  is  loyalty  and  honesty  itself ;  and  if  ever 
again  we  become,  I  do  not  say  what  we  have  been,  but  at  least 
what  we  ought  to  be,  you  may  then  depend  on  the  entire  fidelity 
of  a  good  ally. 

"  I  do  not  say  any  thing  to  you  of  our  actual  position :  it  is  too 
heart-rending.  It  ought  to  afflict  every  sovereign  in  the  universe, 
and  still  more  an  affectionate  relation  like  you.  It  is  only  time 
and  patience  that  can  bring  back  men's  minds  to  a  healthy  state. 
It  is  a  war  of  opinions,  and  one  which  is  still  far  from  being  ter- 
minated. It  is  only  the  justice  of  our  cause  and  the  feeling  of  a 

good  conscience  that  can  support  us My  most  sincere  wish 

is  that  you  may  never  meet  with  ingratitude.  My  own  melan- 
choly experience  proves  to  me  that,  of  all  evils,  that  is  the  most 
terrible." 

Yet  no  indignation  at  the  thanklessness  of  the  Parisians  could 
chill  her  constant  benevolence  toward  them ;  and  amidst  all  the 
anxieties  which  filled  her  mind  for  herself,  her  husband,  and  her 
child,  she  founded  an  asylum  for  the  education  of  a  number  of 


*  "  Je  me  flatte  que  je  la  me'riterai  [1'amitie"  et  confiance]  de  votre  part 
lorsque  ma  fa9on  de  penser  et  mon  tendre  attachement  pour  vous,  votre  epoux, 
vos  enfants,  et  tout  ce  qui  peut  vous  inte'resser  vous  seront  mieux  connus." — 
ARNETH,  p.  120.  Leopold  had  been  for  many  years  absent  from  Germany,  be- 
ing at  Florence  as  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany. 


CHANGE  OF  MIRABEAV'S  VIEWS.  295 

orphan  daughters  of  old  soldiers,  and  found  time  to  give  her  care- 
ful attention  to  a  code  of  regulations  for  its  management.* 

Meanwhile  circumstances  were  gradually  paving  the  way  for 
her  accepting  the  help  of  him  who,  during  the  earliest  discussions 
of  the  Assembly,  had  been,  not  so  much  through  his  own  malice 
as  through  Necker's  folly,  her  worst  enemy.  We  have  seen  how, 
immediately  after  the  attack  on  Versailles,  Mirabeau  had  once 
more  endeavored  to  find  an  opening  through  which  to  place  him- 
self at  her  service.  He  alone,  perhaps,  of  all  men  in  the  kingdom, 
perceived  the  reality  and  greatness  of  the  danger  which  threat- 
ened even  the  lives  of  the  sovereigns  ;f  and,  as  amidst  all  the  er- 
rors into  which  his  regard  for  his  own  interests,  his  vindictiveness, 
or  his  caprice  impelled  him,  he  always  preserved  the  perceptions 
and  instincts  of  a  genuine  statesman,  many  of  the  transactions  of 
the  winter  increased  his  conviction  of  the  peril  in  which  every 
interest  in  the  whole  kingdom  was  placed,  if  the  headlong  folly 
of  the  Assembly  could  not  be  restrained,  and  if  even,  proverbially 
difficult  as  such  a  course  is,  some  of  its  acts  could  not  be  rescind- 
ed ;  while  one  transaction,  which,  more  than  any  other  that  had 
yet  taken  place,  showed  the  greatness  of  the  queen's  heart,  much 
sharpened  his  eagerness  to  prove  himself  a  worthy  servant  of  so 
noble-minded  a  mistress. 

Some  of  the  magistrates  who  still  desired  to  discharge  their 
duty  had  instituted  an  investigation  into  the  conspiracy  which 
had  originated  the  attack  on  Versailles,  and  all  its  multiplied  hor- 
rors. They  had  examined  a  great  body  of  witnesses,  whose  evi- 
dence left  no  doubt  of  the  active  part  taken  in  it  by  the  Due 
d'Orleans  and  his  partisans,  and  by  Mirabeau,  whether  he  were  to 
be  included  among  that  prince's  adherents  or  not ;  but  they  con- 
ceived it  specially  important  to  procure  the  testimony  of  the 
queen  herself.  However,  it  was  in  vain  that  they  applied  to  her 
for  the  slightest  information.  Appeals  to  her  indignation,  to  her 
pride,  and  to  her  danger,  were  equally  disregarded  by  her.  No 
denunciation  of  those  who,  whatever  had  been  their  crimes,  were 

*  Feuillet  de  Conches,  in.,  p.  260. 

f  As  early  as  the  second  week  in  October  (La  Marck,  p.  81,  seems  to  place 
the  conversation  even  before  the  outrages  of  October  5th  and  6th ;  but  this 
seems  impossible,  and  may  arise  from  his  manifest  desire  to  represent  Mira- 
beau as  unconnected  with  those  horrors),  Mirabeau  said  to  La  Marck,  "  Tout 
est  perdu,  le  roi  et  la  reine  y  pe>iront  et  vous  le  verrez,  la  populace  battra 
leurs  cadavres." 


296  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

still  the  subjects  of  her  husband,  could,  in  her  eyes,  be  becoming 
to  her  as  queen ;  and  when  those  who  hoped  to  make  a  tool  of 
her  to  crush  their  political  rivals  urged  that  no  evidence  would  be 
accepted  as  equally  conclusive  with  hers,  since  no  one  had  seen  so 
much  of  what  had  taken  place,  or  had  in  so  great  a  degree  pre- 
served that  coolness  which  was  indispensable  to  a  clear  account 
of  it,  and  to  the  identification  of  the  guilty,  her  reply  was  a  dig- 
nified and  magnanimous  pardon  of  the  outrages  beneath  which 
she  had  so  nearly  perished.  "  I  have  seen  every  thing ;  I  have 
known  every  thing;  I  have  forgotten  every  thing;"  and  Mira- 
beau,  not  unthankful  for  the  protection  which  her  magnanimity 
thus  threw  around  him,  was  eager  to  make  atonement  for  his  past 
insults  and  injuries. 

And  many  of  the  recent  events  had  convinced  him  that  there 
was  no  time  to  lose.  The  vote  of  November,  debarring  him,  in 
common  with  all  other  members  of  the  Assembly,  from  office, 
was  a  severe  blow  to  the  most  important  of  his  projects,  so  far  as 
his  own  interests  were  concerned.  Within  a  month  it  had  been 
followed  by  another,  proposed  by  the  Abbe  Sieyes,  a  busy  priest 
who  boasted  that  he  had  made  himself  master  of  the  whole  sci- 
ence of  politics,  but  who  was  in  fact  a  mere  slave  of  abstract 
theories,  the  safety  or  even  the  practicability  of  which  he  was  ut- 
terly unable  to  estimate.  On  his  motion,  the  Assembly,  in  a  sin- 
gle evening,  abolished  all  the  ancient  territorial  divisions  of  the 
kingdom,  and  the  very  names  of  the  provinces;  dividing  the 
country  anew  into  eighty-three  departments,  and  coupling  with 
this  new  arrangement  a  number  of  details  which  were  evidently 
calculated  to  wrest  the  whole  executive  authority  of  the  kingdom 
from  the  crown  and  to  vest  it  in  the  populace.  At  another  sit- 
ting, the  whole  property  of  the  Church  was  confiscated.  On  an- 
other night,  the  Parliaments  were  abolished ;  and  on  a  fourth,  the 
party  which  had  carried  these  measures  made  a  still  more  direct 
and  audacious  attack  on  the  royal  prerogative,  by  passing  a  reso- 
lution which  deprived  the  crown  of  all  power  of  revising  the 
sentences  of  the  judicial  tribunals,  and  of  pardoning  or  mitigating 
the  punishment  of  those  who  might  have  been  condemned.  And, 
if  to  bring  home  to  the  tender-hearted  monarch  the  full  effect  of 
this  last  inroad  upon  his  legitimate  power,  they  at  the  same  time 
created  a  new  crime  to  which  they  gave  the  name  of  treason 
against  the  nation,*  without  either  defining  it,  or  specifying  the 

*  Lfese-nation. 


EXECUTION  OF  M.  DE  FAVRAS.  297 

kind  of  evidence  which  should  be  required  to  prove  it ;  and  they 
proceeded  at  once  to  put  it  in  force  to  procure  the  condemnation 
of  a  nobleman  of  decayed  fortune,  but  of  the  highest  character, 
the  Marquis  de  Favras,  in  a  manner  which  showed  that  their  real 
object  was  to  strike  terror  into  the  whole  Royalist  party.  The 
charges  on  which  he  was  brought  to  trial  were  not  merely  un- 
founded, but  ridiculous.  He  was  charged  with  designing  to 
raise  an  army  of  thirty  thousand  men,  with  the  object  of  carry- 
ing off  the  king  from  Paris,  of  dissolving  the  Assembly  by  force, 
and  putting  La  Fayette  and  Bailly  to  death.  The  evidence  with 
which  it  was  pretended  to  support  these  charges  broke  down  on 
every  point,  and  its  failure  of  itself  established  the  prisoner's  in- 
nocence, even  without  the  aid  of  his  own  defense,  which  was  lucid 
and  eloquent.  But  the  marquis  was  known  to  be  a  Royalist  in 
feeling,  and,  though  very  poor,  to  stand  high  in  the  confidence  of 
the  princes.  The  demagogues  collected  mobs  round  the  court- 
house to  intimidate  the  judges,  and  the  judges  proved  as  base  as 
the  accusers  themselves.  They  professed,  indeed,  to  fear  not  so 
much  for  their  own  lives  as  for  the  public  tranquillity,  but  they 
pronounced  him  guilty.  One  of  them  had  even  the  effrontery  to 
acknowledge  his  innocence  to  Favras  himself,  and  to  affirm  that 
his  life  was  a  necessary  sacrifice  to  the  public  peace. 

No  event  since  the  attack  on  Versailles  had  caused  Marie  An- 
toinette equal  anguish.  It  showed  that  attachment  to  the  king 
and  herself  was  in  itself  regarded  as  an  inexpiable  crime,  and  her 
distress  was  greatly  augmented  when,  on  the  Sunday  following 
the  execution  of  the  marquis,  some  of  his  friends  brought  to  the 
table  where,  as  usual,  she  was  dining  in  public  with  the  king,  the 
widowed  marchioness  and  her  orphaned  son  in  deep  mourning, 
and  presented  them  to  their  majesties.  Their  introducers  evi- 
dently expected  that  the  king,  or  at  least  the  queen,  by  the  dis- 
tinguished reception  which  she  would  accord  to  them,  would 
mark  their  sense  of  the  merits  of  their  late  husband  and  father, 
and  of  the  indignity  of  the  sentence  under  which  he  had  suffered. 

Marie  Antoinette  was  sadly  embarrassed  and  distressed :  she 
was  taken  wholly  by  surprise;  and  it  happened  by  a  cruel  per- 
verseness  of  fortune  that  Santerre,  the  brewer,  whose  ruffianly  and 
ferocious  enmity  to  the  whole  royal  family,  and  especially  to  her- 
self, had  been  conspicuous  throughout  the  worst  outrages  of  the 
past  summer  and  autumn,  was  on  the  same  day  on  duty  at  the 
palace  as  commander  of  one  of  the  battalions  of  the  Parisian 


298  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

Guard,  and  was  standing  behind  her  chair  when  the  marchioness 
and  her  son  were  introduced.  Her  embarrassment  and  all  her 
feelings  on  the  occasion  were  described  by  herself  in  the  course 
of  the  afternoon  to  Madame  Campan. 

After  the  dinner  was  over,  she  went  up  to  her  attendant's 
room,  saying  that  it  was  a  relief  to  find  herself  where  she  could 
weep  at  her  ease ;  for  weep  she  must  at  the  folly  of  the  ultra- 
Royalists.  "  We  can  not  but  be  destroyed,"  she  continued,  "  when 
we  are  attacked  by  people  who  unite  every  kind  of  talent  to  ev- 
ery kind  of  wickedness ;  and  when  we  are  defended  by  folks  who 
are  indeed  very  estimable,  but  who  have  no  just  notion  of  our  po- 
sition. They  have  now  compromised  me  with  both  parties,  in 
their  presenting  to  me  the  widow  and  son  of  Favras.  If  I  had 
been  free  to  do  as  I  would,  I  should  have  taken  the  child  of  a 
man  who  had  just  been  sacrificed  for  us,  and  have  placed  him  at 
table  between  the  king  and  myself ;  but  surrounded  as  I  was  by 
the  very  murderers  who  had  caused  his  father's  death,  I  could  not 
venture  even  to  bestow  a  glance  upon  him.  Yet  the  Royalists  will 
blame  me  for  not  having  seemed  to  be  interested  in  the  poor 
child ;  while  the  Revolutionists  will  be  furious,  thinking  that 
those  who  presented  him  to  me  knew  that  it  would  please  me." 
And  all  that  she  could  venture  to  do  she  did.  She  knew  that  the 
marchioness  was  very  poor,  and  she  sent  her  by  a  trusty  agent  a 
few  hundred  louis,  and  with  it  a  kind  message,  assuring  the  un- 
happy widow  that  she  would  always  watch  over  her  and  her  son's 
interests. 


THE  KING  ADDRESSES  THE  ASSEMBLY.  299 


CHAPTER  XXVIL 

The  King  accepts  the  Constitution  so  far  as  it  has  been  settled. — The  Queen 
makes  a  Speech  to  the  Deputies. —  She  is  well  received  at  the  Theatre. — 
Negotiations  with  Mirabeau. — The  Queen's  Views  of  the  Position  of  Affairs. 
—  The  Jacobin  Club  denounces  Mirabeau.  —  Deputation  of  Anacharsis 
Clootz. — Demolition  of  the  Statue  of  Louis  XIV. — Abolition  of  Titles  of 
Honor. — The  Queen  admits  Mirabeau  to  an  Audience. — His  Admiration  of 
her  Courage  and  Talents. —  Anniversary  of  the  Capture  of  the  Bastile. — 
Fete  of  the  Champ  de  Mars. — Presence  of  Mind  of  the  Queen. 

WHAT  was  probably  as  painful  to  Marie  Antoinette  as  these  oc- 
currences themselves  was  the  apathy  with  which  the  king  regard- 
ed them.  The  English  traveler  to  whose  journal  we  have  more 
than  once  referred,  and  who,  in  the  first  week  of  the  year,  saw  the 
royal  pair  walking  in  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries,  remarked  that 
though  the  queen  did  not  appear  in  good  health,  but  showed  mel- 
ancholy and  anxiety  in  her  face,  the  king,  on  the  other  hand,  "  was 
as  plump  as  ease  could  render  him."*  And  in  the  course  of  Feb- 
ruary, in  spite  of  all  her  remonstrances,  Necker  succeeded  in  per- 
suading him  to  go  down  to  the  Assembly,  and  to  address  the  mem- 
bers in  a  long  speech,  in  which,  though  some  of  his  expressions 
were  clearly  intended  as  a  reproof  of  the  Assembly  itself  for  the 
precipitation  and  violence  of  some  of  its  measures,  he  nevertheless 
declared  his  cordial  assent  to  the  new  Constitution,  so  far  as  they 
had  yet  settled  it,  and  promised  to  co-operate  in  a  spirit  of  affection 
and  confidence  in  the  labors  which  still  remained  to  be  achieved. 

The  greater  part  of  the  speech  is  believed  to  have  been  his  own 
composition ;  and  it  is  characteristic  of  the  fidelity  with  which,  on 
every  occasion,  Marie  Antoinette  adhered  to  her  rule  of  strength- 
ening her  husband's  position  by  her  own  cordial  and  conspicuous 
support,  that,  strongly  as  she  had  objected  to  the  step  before  it 
was  taken,  now  that  it  was  decided  on,  she  professed  a  decided 
approval  of  it ;  and  when  a  deputation  of  the  Assembly,  which 
had  been  appointed  to  escort  the  king  with  honor  back  to  the  pal- 
ace, solicited  an  audience  of  herself  to  pay  their  respects,  she  as- 
sured the  deputies  that  "  she  partook  of  all  the  sentiments  of  the 

*  Arthur  Young's  "Journal,"  January  4th,  1790,  p.  251. 


300  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

king ;  that  she  united  with  all  her  heart  and  mind  in  the  measure 
which  his  love  for  his  people  had  just  dictated  to  him."  And  then, 
bringing  the  dauphin  forward,  she  added :  "  Behold  my  son.  I 
shall  unceasingly  speak  to  him  of  the  virtues  of  his  most  excel- 
lent father.  I  shall  teach  him  from  the  earliest  age  to  cherish 
public  liberty,  and  I  hope  that  he  will  be  its  firmest  bulwark." 

For  a  moment  the  step  seemed  to  have  succeeded,  though  the 
proofs  of  its  success  were  still  more  strongly  proofs  of  the  utter 
want  of  sense  that  marked  all  the  proceedings  of  the  Assembly. 
As  Louis  had  expressed  his  assent  to  the  Constitution  so  far  as  it 
was  settled,  it  was  proposed,  as  a  fitting  compliment  to  him,  that 
the  Assembly  and  the  whole  body  of  the  citizens  of  Paris  should 
take  an  oath  of  fidelity  to  the  Constitution  without  any  such  res- 
ervation. But  in  the  course  of  the  next  few  weeks  the  Assembly 
showed  how  little  his  reproof  of  its  former  precipitation  and  vio- 
lence had  been  heeded,  since,  among  the  first  measures  with  which 
it  proceeded  to  the  completion  of  the  Constitution,  one  deprived 
him  of  the  right  of  deciding  on  peace  and  war,  a  power  which  all 
wise  statesmen  regard  as  inseparable  from  the  executive  govern- 
ment ;  another  extinguished  the  rights  of  primogeniture ;  and  a 
third  confiscated  all  the  property  of  the  monastic  establishments. 

However,  those  who  took  the  lead  in  the  management  of  affairs 
(for  Necker  and  the  ministers  had  long  ceased  to  exert  the  slight- 
est authority)  were  blinded  by  their  own  fury  to  the  absurdity 
and  inconsistency  of  their  conduct.  Their  exultation  was  un- 
bounded, and,  adhering  to  the  line  of  conduct  which  she  had 
marked  out  for  herself,  Marie  Antoinette  now  yielded  to  their  en- 
treaties that  she  would  show  herself  to  the  citizens  at  the  theatre. 
Even  in  the  days  of  her  earliest  popularity  she  had  never  met  a 
more  enthusiastic  reception.  The  greater  part  of  the  house  rose 
at  her  entrance,  clapping  their  hands  and  cheering,  and  the  disloy- 
alty of  a  few  malcontents  only  made  her  triumph  more  conspic- 
uous, so  roughly  were  they  treated  by  the  rest  of  the  audience. 
Marie  Antoinette  was  herself  touched  at  the  cordiality  with  which 
she  was  greeted,and  saw  in  it  another  proof  that  "  the  people  and 
citizens  were  good  at  heart  if  left  to  themselves ;  but,"  she  added 
to  the  Princess  de  Lambelle,  to  whom  she  described  the  scene,  "  all 
this  enthusiasm  is  but  a  gleam  of  light,  a  cry  of  conscience  which 
weakness  will  soon  stifle."* 

*  Feuillet  de  Conches,  5.,  p.  316. 


OVERTURES  OF  MIRABEAU.  301 

It  is  probably  doing  no  injustice  to  Mirabeau  to  believe  that 
the  crimes  which  had  made  the  greatest  impression  on  the  queen 
were  not  the  events  which  affected  him  the  most  strongly.  But 
he  was  not  only  a  statesman  in  intellect,  but  an  aristocrat  in  every 
feeling  of  his  heart.  No  man  was  fonder  of  referring  to  his  illus- 
trious ancestors ;  or  of  claiming  kindred  with  men  of  old  renown, 
such  as  the  Admiral  de  Coligny,  of  whom  he  more  than  once 
boasted  in  the  Assembly  as  his  cousin;  and  each  blow  dealt  at 
the  consideration  of  the  Nobles  was  an  additional  incentive  to 
him  to  seek  to  arrest  the  progress  of  a  revolution  which  had  al- 
ready gone  far  beyond  his  wishes  or  his  expectations.  And  as  he 
was  always  energetic  in  the  pursuit  of  his  plans,  he  had,  by  some 
means  or  other,  in  spite  of  the  discouragement  derived  from 
the  language  and  conduct  of  the  Count  de  Provence,  contrived 
to  get  information  of  his  willingness  to  enlist  in  the  Royalist 
party  conveyed  to  the  queen.  The  Count  de  la  Marck,  who  was 
still  his  chief  confidant,  was  at  Brussels  at  the  beginning  of  the 
spring,  when  he  received  a  letter  from  Mercy,  begging  him  to  re- 
turn without  delay  to  Paris.  He  lost  no  time  in  obeying  the 
summons,  when  he  learned,  to  his  great  delight,  though  his  pleas- 
ure was  alloyed  by  some  misgiving,  that  the  king  and  queen  had 
resolved  to  avail  themselves  of  Mirabeau's  services,  and  that  he 
himself  was  selected  as  the  intermediate  agent  in  the  negotiation. 
La  Marck's  misgiving,*  as  he  frankly  told  the  embassador  at  the 
outset,  was  caused  by  the  fear  that  Mirabeau  had  done  more  harm 
than  he  could  repair;  but  he  gladly  undertook  the  commission, 
though  its  difficulty  was  increased  by  a  stipulation  which  showed 
at  once  the  weakness  of  the  king,  and  the  extraordinary  difficul- 
ties which  it  placed  in  the  way  of  his  friends.  The  count  was 
especially  warned  to  keep  all  that  was  passing  a  secret  from 
Necker.  He  was  startled,  as  he  well  might  be,  at  such  an  injunc- 
tion. But  he  did  not  think  it  became  his  position  to  start  a  dif- 
ficulty; and,  as  he  was  fully  impressed  with  the  importance  of 
not  losing  time,  the  negotiation  proceeded  rapidly.  He  intro- 
duced Mirabeau  to  Mercy,  and  he  himself  was  admitted  to  an  in- 
terview with  the  queen,  when  he  learned  that  her  greatest  objec- 
tions to  accepting  Mirabeau's  services  were  of  a  personal  nature, 
founded  partly  on  the  general  badness  of  his  character,  partly  on 

*"Le  mal  d6ja  fait  est  bien  grave,  et  je  doute  que  Mirabeau  lui-m£me 
puisse  reparer  celui  qu'on  lui  a  Iaiss6  faire." — Mirabeau  et  La  Marck,  i.,  p.  100. 


302  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

the  share  he  had  borne  in  the  events  of  the  5th  and  6th  of  Oc- 
tober. By  the  count's  own  account,  he  went  rather  beyond  the 
truth  in  his  endeavors  to  exculpate  his  friend  on  this  point ;  and 
he  probably  deceived  himself  when  he  believed  that  he  had  con- 
vinced the  queen  of  his  innocence.  But  both  she  and  Louis,  who 
was  present  at  a  part  of  the  interview,  had  evidently  made  up 
their  minds  to  forget  the  past,  if  they  could  trust  his  promises  for 
the  future.  And  the  interview  ended  in  the  further  conduct  of 
the  necessary  arrangements  being  left  by  Louis  to  the  queen. 

In  a  subsequent  conversation  with  the  count,  she  explained  her 
own  views  of  the  existing  situation  of  affairs,  describing  them, 
indeed,  according  to  her  custom,  as  the  ideas  of  the  king,  in  a 
manner  which  shows  how  much  she  was  willing  that  the  king 
should  abate  of  his  old  prerogatives,  provided  only  that  the  con- 
cessions were  made  voluntarily  by  himself,  and  not  imposed  by 
violent  and  illegal  resolutions  of  the  Assembly.  Mirabeau  had 
drawn  up  an  elaborate  memorial  for  the  consideration  of  the 
king,  in  which  he  pointed  out  in  general  terms  his  sense  of  the 
state  of  "  utter  anarchy  "  into  which  France  had  fallen,  his  shame 
and  indignation  at  feeling  "  that  he  himself  had  contributed  to 
bring  affairs  into  such  a  bad  state,"  and  his  "  profound  conviction 
of  the  necessity,  in  the  interests  of  the  whole  nation,  of  re-estab- 
lishing the  legitimate  authority  of  the  king."*  And  Marie  An- 
toinette, commenting  on  this  expression,  assured  La  Marck  that 
"  the  king  had  no  desire  to  recover  the  full  extent  of  the  authori- 
ty which  he  had  formerly  possessed ;  and  that  he  was  far  from 
thinking  it  necessary  for  his  own  personal  happiness  any  more 
than  for  the  welfare  of  his  people."f  And  it  seemed  to  the 
count  that  she  placed  unlimited  confidence  in  Mirabeau's  ability 
to  re-establish  her  husband's  power  on  a  sufficient  and  satisfac- 
tory basis ;  so  full  was  her  conversation,  during  the  latter  part  of 
the  interview,  of  the  good  which  she  expected  to  be  again  able 
to  do,  and  of  the  warm  affection  with  which  she  regarded  the 
people. 

The  benefits  of  this  new  alliance  were  not  to  be  all  on  one  side. 
Mirabeau  was  overwhelmed  with  debt ;  and  though  his  father  had 
died  in  the  preceding  summer,  he  had  not  yet  entered  into  his 
inheritance,  but  was  in  a  state  little  short  of  absolute  destitution. 
From  this  condition  he  was  to  be  relieved,  and  the  arrangements 

*  La  Marck  et  Mirabeau,  i.,  p.  315.  f  Ibid.,  p.  111. 


NEGOTIATIONS  WITH  MIRABEAU.  303 

for  the  discharge  of  his  debts,  and  the  securing  to  him  the  enjoy- 
ment of  a  sufficient  though  by  no  means  excessive  income,  were 
intrusted  to  Marie  Antoinette  by  the  king,  and  by  her  to  her  almon- 
er, M.  de  Fontanges,  who,  when  Lomenie  de  Brienne  was  promoted 
to  the  archbishopric  of  Sens,  had  succeeded  him  at  Toulouse. 
The  archbishop,  who  was  sincerely  devoted  to  his  royal  mistress, 
carried  out  the  necessary  arrangements  with  great  skill,  but  they 
could  not  be  managed  with  such  secrecy  as  entirely  to  escape  no- 
tice. Among  the  clubs  which  had  been  set  on  foot  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  previous  year  the  most  violent  had  been  that  known 
as  the  Breton  Club,  from  being  founded  by  some  of  the  deputies 
from  the  great  province  of  Brittany  ;  but  when  the  court  removed 
to  Paris,  and  the  Assembly  was  established  in  a  large  building 
close  to  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries,  the  Bretons  obtained  the  use 
of  an  apartment  in  an  old  convent  of  Dominican  or  Jacobin  friars 
(as  they  were  called),  the  same  which  two  centuries  before  had 
been  the  council-room  of  the  League,  and  they  changed  their  own 
designation  also,  and  called  themselves  the  Jacobins ;  and,  cancel- 
ing the  rule  which  limited  the  right  of  membership  to  deputies, 
they  now  admitted  every  one  who,  by  application  for  election, 
avowed  his  adherence  to  their  principles.  Their  leaders  at  this 
time  were  Barnave ;  a  young  noble  named  Alexander  Lameth, 
whose  mother,  having  been  left  in  necessitous  circumstances,  owed 
to  the  bounty  of  the  king  and  queen  the  means  of  educating  her 
children,  a  benefit  which  they  repaid  with  the  most  unremitting 
hostility  to  the  whole  royal  family ;  and  a  lawyer  named  Duport. 
Mirabeau  was  in  the  habit  of  ridiculing  them  as  the  triumvirate ; 
but  they  were  crafty  and  unscrupulous  men,  skillful  in  procuring 
information ;  and,  having  obtained  intelligence  of  his  negotiations 
with  the  court,  they  retaliated  on  him  by  hiring  pamphleteers  and 
journalists  to  attack  him,  and  narratives  of  the  treason  of  the 
Count  de  Mirabeau  were  hawked  about  the  streets. 

To  apply  such  language  to  the  adherence  of  a  French  noble  to 
the  crown  was  the  most  open  avowal  of  disloyalty  on  which  the 
revolutionary  party  had  yet  ventured ;  and  in  the  next  four  weeks 
it  received  a  practical  development  in  a  series  of  measures,  some 
of  which  were  so  ridiculous  as  only  to  deserve  notice  from  the 
additional  evidence  which  they  furnished  of  the  extreme  folly  of 
those  who  now  had  the  lead  in  the  Assembly,  and  of  the  strange 
excitement  to  which  the  whole  nation,  or  at  least  the  whole  pop- 
ulation of  Paris,  must  have  been  wrought  up  befoVe  they  could 


304  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

mistake  their  acts  for  those  of  sagacity  or  patriotism ;  but  others 
of  which,  though  not  less  unwise,  were  of  greater  importance  as 
being  irrevocable  steps  in  the  downward  course  of  destruction 
along  which  the  whole  country  was  being  dragged. 

The  leaders  of  the  revolutionary  party  had  already  selected  two 
days  in  the  past  year  as  especially  memorable  for  the  triumphs 
won  over  the  crown :  one  was  the  20th  of  June,  on  which,  in  the 
Tennis  Court  at  Versailles,  the  members  of  the  Assembly  had 
bound  themselves  to  effect  the  regeneration  of  the  kingdom ;  the 
other  the  14th  of  July,  on  which,  as  they  boasted,  they  had  for- 
ever established  freedom  by  the  destruction  of  the  Bastile  ;  and 
they  determined  this  year  to  celebrate  both  these  anniversaries  in 
a  becoming  manner.  Accordingly,  on  the  20th  of  June,  a  crack- 
brained  member  of  the  Jacobin  Club,  a  Prussian  of  noble  birth, 
named  Clootz,  who,  to  show  his  affinity  with  the  philosophers  of 
old,  had  assumed  the  name  of  Anacharsis,  hired  a  band  of  va- 
grants and  idlers,  and,  dressing  them  up  in  a  variety  of  costumes 
to  represent  Arabs,  red  Indians,  Turks,  Chinese,  Laplanders,  and 
other  tribes,  savage  and  civilized,  led  them  into  the  Assembly  as  a 
deputation  from  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  to  announce  the  res- 
urrection of  the  whole  world  from  slavery ;  and  demanded  per- 
mission for  them  to  attend  the  festival  of  the  ensuing  month,  that 
each,  on  behalf  of  his  country,  might  give  in  his  adhesion  to  the 
principles  of  liberty  as  expounded  by  the  Assembly.  The  pres- 
ident of  the  day  replied  with  an  oration  thanking  M.  Clootz  for 
the  honor  done  to  France  by  such  an  embassy ;  and  Alexander 
Lameth  followed  up  the  president's  harangue  by  fresh  praises  of 
the  deputation  as  holy  pilgrims  who  had  thrown  off  the  shackles 
of  superstition.  Nor  was  he  content  with  a  barren  panegyric. 
He  had  devised  an  appropriate  sacrifice  with  which  to  commem- 
orate such  exalted  virtue.  In  the  finest  square  of  the  city,  the 
Place  des  Yictoires,  the  Duke  de  la  Feuillade  had  erected  a  statue 
of  Louis  XIV.  to  celebrate  his  royal  master's  triumphs,  the  ped- 
estal of  which  was  decorated  with  allegorical  representations  of 
the  nations  which  had  been  conquered  by  the  French  marshals. 
It  was  generally  regarded  as  the  finest  work  of  art  in  the  city,  and 
as  such  it  had  long  been  an  object  of  admiration  and  pride  to  the 
citizens.  But  M.  Lameth,  in  his  new-born  enthusiasm,  regarded 
it  with  other  eyes,  and  closed  his  speech  by  proposing  that,  as 
monuments  of  despotism  and  flattery  could  not  fail  to  be  shock- 
ing to  so  enlightened  a  body,  the  Assembly  should  order  its  in- 


ABOLITION  OF  TITLES.  305 

stant  demolition.  His  proposal  was  received  with  enthusiastic 
cheers,  and  the  noble  monument  was  instantly  overthrown  in  a  fit 
of  blind  fury  more  resembling  the  orgies  of  drunken  Bacchanals, 
or  the  thirst  for  desolation  which  had  animated  the  Goths  and 
Iluns,  than  the  conduct  of  the  chosen  legislators  of  a  polite  and 
accomplished  people. 

But  even  this  was  not  all.  The  insult  to  the  memory  of  a  king 
who,  little  as  he  deserved  it,  had  a  century  before  been  the  ob- 
ject of  the  unanimous  admiration  of  his  subjects,  was  but  a  pre- 
lude to  other  resolutions  of  far  greater  moment,  as  giving  an  in- 
delible character  to  the  future  of  the  nation.  A  deputy,  M.  Lam- 
bel,  whose  very  name  was  previously  unknown  to  the  majority  of 
his  colleagues,  rose  and  made  a  speech  of  three  lines,  as  if  the 
proposal  which  it  contained  only  required  to  be  mentioned  to 
command  instant  and  universal  assent.  "  This  day,"  said  he,  "  is 
the  tomb  of  vanity.  I  demand  the  suppression  of  the  titles  of 
duke,  count,  marquis,  viscount,  baron,  and  knight."  La  Fayette 
and  Alexander  Lameth's  brother,  Charles,  supported  the  demand 
with  almost  equal  brevity ;  a  representative  of  one  of  the  most 
ancient  families  in  the  kingdom,  the  Viscount  Matthieu  de  Mont- 
morency  moved  a  prohibition  of  the  use  of  armorial  bearings ;  an- 
other noble,  M.  de  St.  Targeau,  proposed  that  the  use  of  names  de- 
rived from  the  estates  of  the  owners  should  be  abolished.  Every 
proposal  was  carried  by  acclamation.  Louder  and  louder  cheers 
followed  each  suggestion  of  a  new  abolition ;  a  member  who  vent- 
ured to  propose  an  amendment  to  one  proposal  was  hooted  down ; 
and  in  little  more  than  an  hour  the  whole  series  of  resolutions, 
which  struck  at  once  at  the  recollections  and  glories  of  the 
past  and  at  the  dignity  of  the  future,  was  made  the  law  of  the 
land. 

Every  one  of  these  attacks  on  the  nobles  was  a  fresh  provoca- 
tion to  Mirabeau,  and  increased  his  eagerness  to  complete  his  rec- 
onciliation with  the  crown.  He  pronounced  the  abolition  of  ti- 
tles a  torch  to  kindle  civil  war,  and  pressed  more  earnestly  than 
ever  for  an  interview  with  the  queen,  in  which  he  might  both 
learn  her  views  and  explain  his  own.  Marie  Antoinette  had  fore- 
seen that  she  should  be  forced  to  admit  him  to  her  presence,  but 
there  was  nothing  to  which  she  felt  a  stronger  repugnance.  His 
profligate  character  excited  a  feeling  of  perfect  disgust  in  her 
mind;  but  for  the  public  good  she  overcame  it,  and,  having  in 
the  course  of  June  removed  to  St.  Cloud  for  change  of  air,  on 

20 


306  LIFE  OP  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

the  3d  of  July  she,  accompanied  by  the  king,  received  him  in 
the  garden  of  that  palace.  The  account  which  she  sent  her  broth- 
er of  the  interview  shows  with  what  a  mixture  of  feelings  she  had 
been  agitated.  She  speaks  of  herself  as  "  shivering  with  horror  " 
as  the  moment  drew  near,  and  can  not  bring  herself  to  describe 
him  except  as  a  "  monster,"  though  she  admits  that  his  language 
speedily  removed  her  agitation,  which,  when  he  was  first  present- 
ed to  her,  had  nearly  made  her  ill.  "  He  seemed  to  be  actuated 
by  entire  good  faith,  and  to  be  altogether  devoted  to  the  king ; 
and  Louis  was  highly  pleased  with  him,  so  that  they  now  thought 
every  thing  was  safe."* 

She,  on  her  part,  had  made  an  equally  favorable  impression  on 
him.  She  had  adroitly  flattered  his  high  opinion  of  himself  by 
saying  that  "  if  she  had  been  speaking  to  persons  of  a  different 
class  and  character  she  should  have  felt  the  necessity  of  being 
guarded  in  her  language,  but  that  in  dealing  with  a  Mirabeau 
there  could  be  no  need  of  such  caution ;"  and  he  told  his  confi- 
dant, La  Marck,  that  till  he  knew  "  the  soul  and  thoughts  of  the 
daughter  of  Maria  Teresa,  and  learned  how  fully  he  could  reckon 
on  that  august  ally,  he  had  seen  nothing  of  the  court  but  its 
weakness ;  but  now  confidence  had  raised  his  courage,  and  grati- 
tude had  made  the  prosecution  of  his  principles  a  duty  ;"f  and  in 
some  subsequent  letters  he  speaks  of  every  thing  as  depending  on 
the  queen,  and  describes  in  brief  but  forcible  language  his  ap- 
preciation of  the  dangers  which  surrounded  her,  and  of  the  mag- 
nanimous courage  with  which  he  sees  that  she  is  prepared  to  con- 
front them.  "  The  king,"  he  says,  "  has  but  one  man  about  him, 
and  that  is  his  wife.  There  is  no  safety  for  her  but  in  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  royal  authority.  I  love  to  believe  that  she 
would  not  desire  to  preserve  life  without  the  crown.  What  I  am 
quite  certain  of  is,  that  she  will  not  preserve  her  life  unless  she 
preserves  her  crown." 

In  his  interview  with  her,  as  she  reported  it  to  the  emperor,  he 
had  recommended,  as  the  first  step  to  be  adopted  by  the  king  and 
herself,  a  departure  from  Paris ;  and,  in  reference  to  that  plan, 
which  he  at  all  times  regarded  as  the  foundation  of  every  other, 
he  tells  La  Marck  :  "  The  moment  will  soon  come  when  it  will  be 
necessary  to  try  what  can  be  done  by  a  woman  and  a  child  on 
horseback.  For  her  it  is  but  the  adoption  of  an  hereditary  mode 

*  Feuillet  de  Conches,  L,  p.  345.  f  Mirabeau  et  La  Marck,  i.,  p.  125. 


CEREMONY  IN  THE  CHAMP  DE  MASS.  307 

of  action.*  But  she  must  be  prepared  for  it,  and  must  not  sup- 
pose that  one  can  extricate  one's  self  from  an  extraordinary  crisis 
by  mere  chance  or  by  the  combinations  of  an  ordinary  man." 

The  hopes  with  which  the  acquisition  of  such  an  ally  inspired 
the  queen  at  this  time  nerved  her  to  bear  her  part  in  the  festival 
with  which  the  Assembly  had  decided  on  celebrating  the  demoli- 
tion of  the  Bastile.  The  arrangements  for  it  were  of  a  gigantic 
character.  Round  the  sides  of  the  Champ  de  Mars  a  vast  em- 
bankment was  raised,  so  as  to  give  the  plain  the  appearance  of 
an  amphitheatre,  and  to  afford  accommodation  to  three  hundred 
thousand  spectators.  At  the  entrance  a  magnificent  arch  of  tri- 
umph was  erected.  The  centre  was  occupied  by  a  grand  altar ; 
and  on  one  side  a  gorgeous  pavilion  was  appropriated  to  the  king, 
his  family,  and  retinue,  the  members  of  the  Assembly,  and  the 
municipal  magistrates.  They  were  all  to  be  performers  in  the 
grand  ceremony  which  was  to  be  the  distinguishing  feature  of  the 
day.  The  Constitution  was  scarcely  more  complete  than  it  had 
been  when  Louis  signified  his  acceptance  of  it  five  months  before ; 
but  now,  not  only  were  he,  the  deputies,  and  municipal  authorities 
of  Paris  to  swear  to  its  maintenance,  but  the  same  oath  was  to  be 
taken  by  the  National  Guard,  and  by  a  deputation  from  every  reg- 
iment in  the  army ;  and  it  was  to  bind  the  soldiers  throughout  the 
kingdom  to  the  new  order  of  things  that  the  ceremony  was  orig- 
inally designed.f 

As  a  spectacle  few  have  been  more  successful,  and  perhaps 
none  has  ever  been  so  imposing.  Before  midnight  on  the  13th 
of  July,  the  whole  of  the  vast  amphitheatre  was  filled  with  a 
dense  crowd,  in  its  gayest  holiday  attire — a  marvelous  and  mag- 
nificent sight  from  its  mere  numbers ;  and  early  the  next  morn- 
ing the  heads  of  the  procession  began  to  defile  under  the  arch  at 
the  entrance  of  the  plain — La  Fayette,  at  the  head  of  the  National 
Guard,  leading  the  way.  It  was  a  curious  proof  of  the  king's 
weakness,  and  of  the  tenacity  with  which  he  clung  to  his  policy 

*  He  alludes  to  Maria  Teresa's  appearance  at  Presburg  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Silesian  war. 

f  "II  lui  [a  1' Assembled]  importait  de  faire  une  6preuve  sur  toutea  les 
Gardes  Nationales  de  France,  d'animer  ce  grand  corps  dont  tous  les  membres 

etaient  encore  epars  et  incoherents,  de  leur  donner  une  m6me  impulsion 

Enfin,  de  faire  sous  les  yeui  de  1'Europe  une  imposante  revue  des  forces 
quVlle  pourrait  un  jour  opposer  a  des  rois  inquiets  ou  courrouces." — LACKK- 
TELLE,  vii.,  p.  359. 


308  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

of  conciliation,  that,  in  spite  of  his  knowledge  of  the  general's 
bitter  animosity  to  his  authority  and  to  himself,  and  of  his  recent 
vote  for  the  suppression  of  all  titles  of  honor,  Louis  had  offered 
him  the  sword  of  the  Constable  of  France,  a  dignity  which  had 
been  disused  for  many  years ;  and  it  was  an  equally  striking  evi- 
dence of  La  Fayette's  inveterate  disloyalty  that,  gratifying  as  the 
succession  to  Duguesclin  and  Montmorency  would  have  been  to 
his  vanity,  he  nevertheless  refused  the  honor,  and  contented  him- 
self with  the  dignity  which  the  enrollment  of  the  detachments 
from  the  different  departments  under  his  banner  conferred  on 
him,  by  giving  him  the  appearance  of  being  the  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  National  Guard  throughout  the  kingdom.  The  Na- 
tional Guard  was  followed  by  regiment  after  regiment,  and  depu- 
tation after  deputation,  of  the  regular  army  ;  and,  to  show  the 
subordination  to  the  law  which  they  were  expected  to  acknowl- 
edge for  the  future,  their  swords  were  all  sheathed,  while  the  dep- 
uties, the  municipal  magistrates,  and  other  peaceful  citizens  who 
bore  a  part  in  the  procession  had  their  swords  drawn.  Sailors 
from  the  fleet,  magistrates  and  deputations  from  every  depart- 
ment, and  from  every  city  or  town  of  importance  in  the  kingdom, 
followed ;  and  after  them  came  two  hundred  priests,  with  Talley- 
rand, Bishop  of  Autun,  in  his  episcopal  vestments  at  their  head, 
their  white  robes  somewhat  uncanonically  decorated  with  tricolor 
ribbons,  who  passed  on  into  the  centre  of  the  plain  and  ranged 
themselves  on  the  steps  of  the  altar.  So  vast  was  the  procession 
that  it  was  half-past  three  in  the  afternoon  before  the  detachment 
of  Royal  Guards  which  closed  it  took  up  their  position. 

When  at  last  all  were  in  their  places,  Louis,  accompanied  by 
the  queen  and  other  members  of  his  family,  entered  the  royal 
pavilion.  He  was  known  by  sight  to  the  deputations  from  the 
most  distant  provinces,  for  he  had  reviewed  them  in  a  body  the 
day  before,  when  several  of  them  had  been  separately  presented 
to  him,  toward  whom  he  had  for  once  laid  aside  his  habitual  re- 
serve, assuring  them  of  his  fatherly  regard  for  all  his  subjects 
with  warmth  and  manifest  sincerity.  The  queen,  too,  as  she  al- 
ways did,  had  made  a  most  favorable  impression  on  those  mem- 
bers whom  she  had  seen  by  her  judicious  and  cordial  affability. 
Louis  wore  no  robes,  but  only  the  ordinary  dress  of  a  French  noble. 
Marie  Antoinette  was  in  full  evening  costume,  and  her  hair  was 
dressed  with  a  plume  of  tricolor  feathers.  Yet  even  on  this  day, 
which  was  intended  to  be  one  of  universal  joy  and  friendliness, 


ACCEPTANCE  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.  309 

evil  signs  were  not  wanting  to  show  how  powerful  were  the  ene- 
mies of  both  king  and  queen ;  for  no  seat  whatever  had  been 
provided  for  her,  while  by  the  side  of  that  constructed  for  the 
king  another  on  very  nearly  the  same  level  had  been  placed  for 
the  President  of  the  Assembly. 

„  But  these  refinements  of  discourtesy  were  lost  on  the  specta- 
tors. They  cheered  the  royal  pair  joyously  the  moment  that 
they  appeared.  Before  the  shouts  had  died  away,  Bishop  Talley- 
rand began  the  service  of  the  mass;  and,  on  its  termination,  ad- 
ministered the  oath  "  of  fidelity  to  the  nation,  the  law,  the  king, 
and  the  Constitution  as  decreed  by  the  Assembly  and  accepted 
by  the  king."  La  Fayette  took  the  oath  first  in  the  name  of  the 
army.  Talleyrand  followed  on  behalf  of  the  clergy.  Bailly  came 
next,  as  the  representative  of  the  citizens  of  Paris.  It  was  a 
stormy  day ;  and  when  the  moment  arrived  for  the  king  to  set 
the  seal  to  the  universal  acceptance  of  the  constitution  by  swear- 
ing to  exert  all  his  own  power  for  its  maintenance,  the  rain  came 
down  so  heavily  as  to  render  it  impossible  for  him  to  leave  the 
shelter  of  his  own  pavilion.  As  it  happened,  the  momentary  dis- 
appointment gave  a  greater  effect  to  his  act.  With  more  than 
usual  presence  of  mind,  he  advanced  to  the  front  of  the  pavilion, 
so  as  to  be  seen  by  the  whole  of  the  assembled  multitude,  and 
took  the  oath  with  a  loud  voice  and  perfect  dignity  of  manner. 
As  he  resumed  his  seat,  the  rain  cleared  away,  the  sun  burst 
through  the  clouds ;  and  the  queen,  as  if  by  a  sudden  inspiration, 
brought  forward  the  little  dauphin,  and,  lifting  him  up  in  her 
arms,  showed  him  to  the  people.  Those  whom  the  king's  voice 
could  not  reach  saw  the  graceful  action ;  and  from  every  side  of 
the  plain  one  universal  acclamation  burst  forth,  which  seemed  to 
bear  out  Marie  Antoinette's  favorite  assertion  that  the  people  were 
good  at  heart,  and  that  it  was  not  without  great  perseverance  in 
artifice  and  malignity  that  they  could  be  excited  to  disloyalty  and 
treason. 


310  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XXVIIL 

Great  Tumults  in  the  Provinces. — Mutiny  in  the  Marquis  de  Bouille's  Army. — 
Disorder  of  the  Assembly. — Difficulty  of  managing  Mirabeau. — Mercy  is  re- 
moved to  The  Hague. — Marie  Antoinette  sees  constant  Changes  in  the  As. 
pect  of  Affairs. — Marat  denounces  Her. — Attempts  are  made  to  assassinate 
Her. — Resignatiqp,  of  Mirabeau. — Misconduct  of  the  Emigrant  Princes. 

BUT  men  less  blinded  by  the  feverish  excitement  of  revolution- 
ary enthusiasm  would  have  seen  but  little  in  the  state  of  France 
at  this  time  to  regard  as  matter  for  exultation.  Many  of  the  re- 
cent measures  of  the  Assembly,  and  especially  the  extinction  of 
the  old  provinces,  had  created  great  discontent  in  the  rural  dis- 
tricts. Formidable  riots  had  broken  out  in  many  quarters,  es- 
pecially in  the  great  southern  cities,  in  some  of  which  the  mob 
had  rivaled  the  worst  excesses  of  its  Parisian  brethren  ;  massacring 
the  magistrates,  tearing  their  bodies  into  pieces,  and  terrifying  the 
peaceable  inhabitants  by.  processions,  in  which  the  mangled  re- 
mains of  their  victims  formexi  the  most  conspicuous  feature.  At 
Brest  and  at  Toulon  the  sailors  showed  that  they  fully  shared  the 
general  dissatisfaction ;  while  in  the  army  a  formidable  mutiny 
broke  out  among  the  troops  which  were  under  the  command  of 
the  Marquis  de  Bouille,  in  Lorraine.  That,  indeed,  had  a  differ- 
ent object,  since  it  had  been  excited  by  Jacobin  emissaries,  who 
were  aware  that  the  marquis,  the  soldier  who,  of  the  whole  French 
army  at  that  time,  enjoyed  the  highest  reputation,  was  firmly  at- 
tached to  the  king;  though  he  was  not  one  of  the  nobles  who 
had  opposed  all  reform,  nor  had  he  hesitated  to  follow  his  royal 
master's  example  and  to  declare  his  acceptance  of  the  new  Con- 
stitution. Fortunately  he  had  subalterns  worthy  of  him,  and 
faithful  to  their  oaths ;  and  as  he  was  a  man  of  great  promptitude 
and  decision,  he,  with  their  aid,  quelled  the  mutiny,  though  not 
without  a  sanguinary  conflict,  in  which  he  himself  lost  above  four 
hundred  men,  while  the  loss  which  he  inflicted  on  the  mutineers 
was  far  heavier.  But  he  had  set  a  noble  example,  and  had  given 
an  undeniable  proof  of  the  possibility  of  quelling  the  most  formi- 
dable tumults  ;  and  it  may  be  said  that  his  quarters  were  the  only 


DISORDERS  IN  THE  ASSEMBLY.  31 1 

spot  in  all  France  which  was  not  wholly  given  up  to  anarchy 
and  disorder. 

For  even  the  Assembly  itself  was  a  prey  to  tumult  and  vio- 
lence. From  the  time  of  its  assuming  that  title  admission  had 
been  given  to  every  one  who  could  force  his  way  into  the  cham- 
ber, whether  he  was  a  member  or  not ;  nor  was  any  order  pre- 
served among  those  who  thus  obtained  admission  ;  but  they  were 
allowed  to  express  their  opinion  of  every  speaker  and  of  every 
speech  by  friendly  or  unfriendly  clamor :  a  practice  which,  as  may 
well  be  supposed,  materially  influenced  many  votes.  And  pres- 
ently attendance  for  that  purpose  became  a  trade ;  some  of  the 
most  violent  deputies  hiring  a  regularly  appointed  troop  to  take 
their  station  in  the  galleries,  and  paying  them  daily  wages  to  ap- 
plaud or  hiss  in  accordance  with  the  signs  which  they  themselves 
made  from  the  body  of  the  halL*  And  if  the  populace  was  thus 
the  master  of  the  Assembly  while  at  Versailles,  this  was  far  more 
the  case  after  its  removal  to  Paris,,  where  the  number  of  the  idle 
portion  of  the  population  furnished  the  Jacobins  with  far  greater 
means  of  intimidating  their  adversaries. 

It  was  remarkable  that  La  Marck  himself,  as  has  been  already 
intimated,  did  not  fully  share  the  hopes  which  the  king  and  queen 
founded  on  the  adhesion  of  Mirabeau.  It  was  not  only  that  on 
one  point  he  had  sounder  views  than  Mirabeau  himself — doubting, 
as  he  did,  whether  the  mischief  which  his  vehement  friend  had 
formerly  done  could  now  be  undone  by  the  same  person,  merely 
because  he  had  changed  his  mind — but  he  also  felt  doubts  of 
Mirabeau's  steadiness  in  his  new  path,  and  feared  lest  eagerness 
for  popularity,  or  an  innate  levity  of  disposition,  might  still  lead, 
him  astray.  As  he  described  him  in  a  letter  to  Mercy, "  he  was 
sometimes  very  great  and  sometimes  very  little ;  he  could  be  very 
useful,  and  he  could  be  very  mischievous  :  in  a  word,  he  was  often 
above,  and  sometimes  greatly  below,  any  other  man."  At  anoth- 
er time  he  speaks  of  him  as  "  by  turns  imprudent  through  excess 
of  confidence,  and  lukewarm  from  distrust ;"  and  this  estimate  of 

*  We  learn  from  Dr.  Moore  that  there  was  a  leader  with  five  subaltern  of- 
ficers and  one  hundred  and  fifty  rank  and  file  in  each  gallery  of  the  chamber ; 
that  the  wages  of  the  latter  were  from  two  to  three  francs  a  day ;  the  subaltern 
had  ten  francs,  the  leaders  fifty.  The  entire  expense  was  about  a  thousand 
francs  a  day,  a  sum  which  strengthens  the  suspicion  that  the  pay-master  (orig- 
inally, at  least)  was  the  Due  d'0r!6ans. — DR.  MOORE'S  View  of  the  Causes,  etc., 
•)fthe  French  Revolution,  i.,  p.  425. 


312  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

the  great  demagogue,  which  was  not  very  incorrect,  shows,  too, 
how  high  an  opinion  La  Marck  had  formed  of  the  queen's  ability 
and  force  of  character,  for  he  looks  to  her  "  to  put  a  curb  on  his 
inconstancy,"*  trusting  for  that  result  not  so  much  to  her  power 
of  fascination  as  to  her  clearness  of  view  and  resolution. 

And  she  herself  was  never  so  misled  by  her  high  estimate  of 
Mirabeau's  abilities  and  influence  as  to  think  his  judgment  uner- 
ring. On  the  contrary,  her  comment  to  Mercy  on  one  of  the 
earliest  letters  which  he  addressed  to  the  king  was  that  it  was 
"  full  of  madness  from  one  end  to  the  other,"  and  she  asked 
"  how  he,  or  any  one  else,  could  expect  that  at  such  a  moment 
the  king  and  she  could  be  induced  to  provoke  a  civil  war?"  al- 
luding, apparently,  to  his  urgent  advice  that  the  royal  family 
should  leave  Paris,  a  step  of  the  necessity  for  which  she  was  not 
yet  convinced.  Her  hope  evidently  was  that  he  would  bring  for- 
ward some  motions  in  the  Assembly  which  might  at  least  arrest 
the  progress  of  mischief,  and  perhaps  even  pave  the  way  for  the 
repair  of  some  of  the  evil  already  done. 

On  one  point  she  partly  agreed  with  him,  but  not  wholly.  He 
insisted  on  the  necessity  of  dismissing  the  ministers;  but  she, 
though  thinking  them,  both  as  a  body  and  individually,  unequal 
to  the  crisis,  saw  great  difficulty  in  replacing  them,  since  the  vote 
of  the  preceding  winter  forbade  the  king  to  select  their  successors 
from  the  members  of  the  Assembly  ;f  and  she  feared  also  lest,  if 
he  should  dismiss  them,  the  Assembly  would  carry  out  a  plan 
which,  as  it  seemed  to  her,  it  already  showed  great  inclination  to 
adopt,  of  managing  every  thing  by  means  of  committees,  and  pre- 
venting the  appointment  of  any  new  administration.  Her  view 
of  the  situation,  and  of  the  king's  and  her  position,  varied  from 
time  to  time,  as  indeed  their  circumstances  and  the  views  of  the 
Assembly  appeared  to  alter.  In  August  she  is  in  great  distress, 
caused  by  a  decision  of  the  emperor  to  remove  Mercy  to  the  Hague. 
"  I  am,"  she  writes  to  the  embassador,  "  in  despair  at  your  de- 
parture, especially  at  a  moment  when  affairs  are  becoming  every 
day  more  embarrassing  and  more  painful,  and  when  I  have  there- 
fore the  greater  need  of  an  attachment  as  sincere  and  enlightened 
as  yours.  But  I  feel  that  all  the  powers,  under  different  pretexts, 
will  withdraw  their  ministers  one  after  another.  It  is  impossible 
to  leave  them  incessantly  exposed  to  this  disorder  and  license ; 

*  Mintbeau  et  La  Marck,  ii.,  p.  4Y.  f  Feuillet  de  Conches,  i.,  p.  352. 


JEALOUSY  OF  AUSTRIAN  INFLUENCE.  313 

but  such  is  my  destiny,  and  I  am  forced  to  endure  the  horror  of 
it  to  the  very  end."*  But  a  fortnight  later  she  tells  Madame  de 
Polignac  that  "  for  some  days  things  have  been  wearing  a  better 
complexion.  She  can  not  feel  very  sanguine,  the  mischievous 
folks  having  such  an  interest  in  perverting  every  thing,  and  in 
hindering  every  thing  which  is  reasonable,  and  such  means  of  do- 
ing so ;  but  at  the  moment  the  number  of  ill-intentioned  people 
is  diminished,  or  at  least  the  right-thinking  of  all  classes  and  of 

all  ranks  are  more  united You  may  depend  upon  it,"  she 

adds,  "  that  misfortunes  have  not  diminished  my  resolution  or  my 
courage :  I  shall  not  lose  any  of  that ;  they  will  only  give  me  more 
prudence."f  Indeed,  her  own  strength  of  mind,  fortitude,  and 
benevolence  were  the  only  things  in  France  which  were  not  con- 
stantly changing  at  this  time;  and  she  derived  one  lesson  from 
the  continued  vicissitudes  to  which  she  was  exposed,  which,  if 
partly  grievous,  was  also  in  part  full  of  comfort  and  encourage- 
ment to  so  warm  a  heart.  "  It  is  in  moments  such  as  these  that 
one  learns  to  know  men,  and  to  see  who  are  truly  attached  to 
one,  and  who  are  not.  I  gain  every  day  fresh  experiences  in  this 
point ;  sometimes  cruel,  sometimes  pleasant ;  for  I  am  continual- 
ly finding  that  some  people  are  truly  and  sincerely  attached  to  us, 
to  whom  I  never  gave  a  thought." 

Another  of  her  old  vexations  was  revived  in  the  renewed  jeal- 
ousy of  Austrian  influence  with  which  the  Jacobin  leaders  at  this 
time  inspired  the  mob,  and  which  was  so  great  that,  when  in  the 
autumn  Leopold  sent  the  young  Prince  de  Lichtenstein  as  his  en- 
voy to  notify  his  accession,  Marie  Antoinette  could  only  venture 
to  give  him  a  single  audience ;  and,  greatly  as  she  enjoyed  the 
opportunity  of  gathering  from  him  news  of  Vienna  and  of  the 
old  friends  of  the  childhood  of  whom  she  still  cherished  an  affec- 
tionate recollection,  she  was  yet  forced  to  dismiss  him  after  a  few 
minutes'  conversation,  and  to  beg  him  to  accelerate  his  departure 
from  Paris,  lest  even  that  short  interview  should  be  made  a  pre- 
text for  fresh  calumnies.  "  The  kindest  thing  that  any  Austrian 
of  mark  could  do  for  her,"  she  told  her  brother,  "  was  to  keep 
away  from  Paris  at  present."!  She  would  gladly  have  seen  the 
Assembly  interest  itself  a  little  in  the  politics  of  the  empire,  where 
Leopold's  own  situation  was  full  of  difficulties;  but  the  French 

*  Marie  Antoinette  to  Mercy,  Feuillet  de  Conches,  i.,  p.  855. 

f  Ibid.,  i.,  p.  365.  \  Arneth,  p.  140. 


314  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

had  not  yet  come  to  consider  themselves  as  justified  in  interfering 
in  the  internal  government  of  other  countries.  As  she  describes 
their  feelings  to  the  emperor,  "They  feel  their  own  individual 
troubles,  but  those  of  their  neighbors  do  not  yet  affect  them ;  and 
the  names  of  Liberty  and  Despotism  are  so  deeply  engraved  in 
their  heads,  even  though  they  do  not  clearly  define  them,  that 
they  are  everlastingly  passing  from  the  love  of  the  former  to  the 
dread  of  the  latter;"  and  then  she  adds  a  sketch  of  her  own  ideas 
and  expectations,  and  of  the  objects  which  she  conceives  it  her 
duty  to  keep  in  view,  in  which  it  is  affecting  to  see  that  her  utter 
despair  of  any  future  happiness  for  the  king  and  herself  in  no  de- 
gree weakens  her  desire  to  promote  the  happiness  of  the  very  peo- 
ple who  have  caused  her  suffering.  "  Our  task  is  to  watch  skill- 
fully for  the  moment  when  men's  heads  have  returned  to  proper 
ideas  sufficiently  to  make  them  enjoy  a  reasonable  and  honest  free- 
dom, such  as  the  king  has  himself  always  desired  for  the  happi- 
ness of  his  people ;  but  far  from  that  license  and  anarchy  which 
have  precipitated  the  fairest  of  kingdoms  into  all  possible  mis- 
eries. Our  health  continues  good,  but  it  would  be  better  if  we 
could  only  perceive  the  least  gleam  of  happiness  around  us ;  as  for 
ourselves,  that  is  at  an  end  forever,  happen  what  will.  I  know  that 
it  is  the  duty  of  a  king  to  suffer  for  others ;  and  it  is  one  which 
we  are  discharging  thoroughly." 

She  had  indeed  at  this  time  sufferings  to  which  it  is  pharacter- 
istic  of  her  undaunted  courage  that  she  never  makes  the  slightest 
allusion  in  her  letters.  Of  all  the  Jacobin  party,  one  of  the  most 
blood-thirsty  was  a  wretch  named  Marat.*  At  the  very  outset  of 
the  Revolution  he  had  established  a  newspaper  to  which  he  gave 
the  name  of  The  People's  Friend,  and  the  staple  topic  of  which 
was  the  desirableness  of  bloodshed  and  massacre.  He  had  been 
exasperated  at  the  receptions  given  to  the  royal  family  at  the  fes- 
tival of  July ;  and  for  some  weeks  afterward  his  efforts  were  di- 
rected to  inflame  the  populace  to  a  new  riot,  in  which  the  king 
and  queen  should  be  dragged  into  Paris  from  St.  Cloud,  as  in 
1789  they  had  been  dragged  in  from  Versailles,  and  which  should 
end  in  the  murder  of  the  queen,  the  ministers,  and  several  hun- 
dreds of  other  innocent  persons ;  and  his  denunciations  very  near- 


*  It  is  remarkable  that  he,  like  one  or  two  of  the  Girondin  party,  belonged 
by  birth  to  the  Huguenot  persuasion,  and  Marat  had  studied  medicine  at 
Edinburgh. 


ATTEMPTS  AT  HER  ASSASSINATION.  315 

ly  bore  a  part  of  their  intended  fruit.  The  royal  family  had  hard- 
ly returned  to  St.  Cloud,  when  a  man  named  Rotondo  was  appre- 
hended in  the  inner  garden,  who  confessed  that  he  had  made  his 
way  into  it  with  the  express  design  of  assassinating  Marie  An- 
toinette, a  design  which  was  only  balked  by  the  fortunate  acci- 
dent of  a  heavy  shower  which  prevented  her  from  leaving  the 
house ;  and  a  week  or  two  afterward  a  second  plot  was  discov- 
ered, the  contrivers  of  which  designed  to  poison  her.  Her  attend- 
ants were  greatly  alarmed ;  and  her  physician  furnished  Madame 
Campan  with  an  antidote  for  such  poisons  as  seemed  most  like- 
ly to  be  employed.  But  Marie  Antoinette  herself  cared  little  for 
such  precautions.  Assassination  was  not  the  end  which  she  an- 
ticipated. On  one  occasion,  when  she  found  Madame  Campan 
changing  some  powdered  sugar  which,  it  was  suspected,  might 
have  been  tampered  with,  she  thanked  her,  and  praised  M.  Vicq- 
d'Azyr,  the  physician  by  whose  instructions  Madame  Campan  was 
acting,  but  told  her  that  she  was  giving  herself  needless  trouble. 
"  Depend  upon  it,"  she  added,  "  they  will  not  employ  a  grain  of 
poison  against  me.  The  Brinvilliers*  do  not  belong  to  this  age ; 
people  now  use  calumny,  which  is  much  more  effectual  for  killing 
people ;  and  it  is  by  calumny  that  they  will  work  my  destruc- 
tion, f  But  even  thus,  if  my  death  only  secures  the  throne  to  my 
son,  I  shall  willingly  die." 

One  of  the  measures  which  Mirabeau  strongly  urged,  and  as 
to  which  Marie  Antoinette  hesitated,  balancing  the  difficulties 
to  which  it  was  not  unlikely  to  give  rise  against  the  advantages 
which  were  more  obvious,  was  arranged  without  her  intervention. 
Necker  had  but  one  panacea  for  all  the  ills  of  a  defective  consti- 
tution or  an  ill-regulated  government — the  re-establishment  of  the 
finances  of  the  country ;  and,  as  public  confidence  is  indispensa- 
ble to  national  credit,  the  troubles  of  the  last  year  had  largely  in- 
creased the  embarrassments  of  the  Treasury.  He  was  also  but 
scantily  endowed  with  personal  courage.  In  the  denunciations  of 
Marat  he  had  not  been  spared,  and  by  the  beginning  of  Septem- 
ber fear  had  so  predominated  over  every  other  feeling  in  his  mind 
that  he  resolved  to  quit  a  country  which,  as  he  was  not  one  of  her 
sons,  seemed  to  him  to  have  no  such  claim  on  his  allegiance  that 


*  The  Marquise  de  Brinvilliers  had  been  executed  for  poisoning  several  of 
her  own  relations  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV. 

f  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  xvii. ;  Chambrier,  ii.,  p.  12. 


316  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

he  should  imperil  his  life  for  her  sake.  But  in  carrying  out  his 
determination,  he  exhibited  a  strange  forgetfulness,  not  only  of 
the  respect  due  to  his  royal  master  as  king,  but  also  of  all  the  or- 
dinary rules  of  propriety ;  for  he  did  not  resign  his  office  into 
the  hands  of  the  sovereign  from  whom  he  had  received  it,  but  he 
announced  his  retirement  to  the  Assembly,  sending  the  president 
of  the  week  a  letter  in  which  he  attributed  his  reasons  for  the  step 
partly  to  his  health,  which  he  described  as  weak,  and  partly  to 
the  "  mortal  anxieties  of  his  wife,  as  virtuous  as  she  was  dear  to 
his  heart."  It  was  hardly  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  members 
present  were  moved  rather  to  laughter  than  to  sympathy  by  this 
sentimental  effusion.  They  took  no  notice  of  the  letter,  and 
passed  to  the  order  of  the  day ;  and  certainly,  if  it  afforded  evi- 
dence of  his  amiable  disposition,  it  supplied  proof  at  least  equally 
strong  of  the  weakness  of  his  character,  and  of  his  consequent  un- 
fitness  for  any  post  of  responsibility  at  such  a  time. 

It  was  more  to  his  credit  that  he  at  the  same  time  placed  in 
the  treasury  a  sum  of  two  millions  of  francs  to  cover  any  incor- 
rectness which  might  be  discovered  or  suspected  in  his  accounts, 
and  any  loss  which  might  be  sustained  from  the  depreciation  of 
the  paper  money  lately  issued  under  his  administration,  though 
not  with  his  approbation.  All  the  rest  of  his  colleagues  retired 
at  the  same  time,  except  the  foreign  secretary,  M.  Montmorin. 
They  had  recently  been  attacked  with  great  violence  in  the  As- 
sembly by  a  combination  of  the  most  extreme  democrats  and  the 
most  extreme  Royalists,  the  latter  of  whom  accused  them  of  hav- 
ing betrayed  the  royal  authority  by  unworthy  accessions.  But, 
though,  in  the  division  which  had  taken  place  they  had  been  sup- 
ported by  a  considerable  majority,  they  feared  a  repetition  of  the 
attack,  and  resigned  their  offices ;  in  some  degree  undoubtedly 
weakening  their  royal  master  by  their  retirement,  since  those  by 
whom  he  found  himself  compelled  to  replace  them  had  still  less  of 
his  confidence.  Two — Duport  de  Tertre,  Keeper  of  the  Seals,  and 
Duportail,  Minister  of  War — were  creatures  of  La  Fayette,  and  the 
first  mentioned  was  notoriously  unfriendly  to  the  queen.  Two  oth- 
ers— Lambert,  the  successor  of  Necker,  and  Fleurieu,  the  Minister 
of  Marine — were  under  the  influence  of  Barnave  and  the  Jacobins. 
The  only  member  of  the  new  ministry  who  was  in  the  least  degree 
acceptable  to  Louis  was  M.  de  Lessart,  the  Minister  of  the  Interior ; 
but  he,  though  loyal  in  purpose,  was  of  too  moderate  talents  for 
his  appointment  to  add  any  real  strength  to  the  royal  cause. 


POLICY  OF  MMABEAU.  317 

Marie  Antoinette,  however,  paid  but  little  attention  to  these 
ministerial  changes;  she  regarded  them  —  and  her  view  was  not 
unsound  —  as  but  the  displacement  of  one  set  of  weak  men  by 
another  set  equally  weak;  and  she  saw,  too,  that  the  Assembly 
had  established  so  complete  a  mastery  over  the  Government,  that 
even  men  of  far  greater  ability  and  force  of  character  would  have 
been  impotent  for  good.  Her  whole  dependence  was  on  Mira- 
beau ;  and  his  course  at  this  time  was  so  capricious  and  erratic 
that  it  often  caused  her  more  perplexity  and  alarm  than  pleasure 
or  confidence.  He  regarded  himself  as  having  a  very  difficult 
part  to  play.  He  could  not  conceal  from  himself  that  he  was  no 
longer  able  to  lead  the  Assembly  as  he  had  done  at  first,  except 
when  he  was  urging  it  along  a  road  which  it  desired  to  take.  In 
spite  of  one  of  his  most  brilliant  efforts  of  eloquence,  he  had  re- 
cently been  defeated  in  an  endeavor  to  preserve  to  the  king  the 
right  of  peace  and  war ;  and,  to  regain  his  ascendency,  he  more 
than  once  in  the  course  of  the  autumn  supported  measures  to 
which  the  king  and  queen  had  the  greatest  repugnance,  and  made 
speeches  so  inflammatory  that  even  his  own  friend,  La  Marck,  was 
indignant  at  his  language,  and  expostulated  with  him  with  great 
earnestness.  He  justified  himself  by  explaining  his  view*  that 
no  man  in  the  country  could  at  present  bring  the  people  back  to 
reasonable  notions ;  that  they  could  only  at  this  moment  be  gov- 
erned by  flattering  their  prejudices;  that  the  king  must  trust  to 
time  alone ;  and  that  his  own  sole  prospect  of  being  of  use  to  the 
crown  lay  in  his  preservation  of  his  popularity  till  the  favorable 
moment  should  arrive,  even  if,  to  preserve  that  popularity,  it  were 
necessary  for  him  at  times  still  to  appear  a  supporter  of  revolu- 
tionary principles.  It  is  not  impossible  that  the  motives  which 
he  thus  described  did  really  influence  him ;  but  it  was  not  strange 
that  Marie  Antoinette  should  fail  to  appreciate  such  refined  sub- 
tlety. She  had  looked  forward  to  his  taking  a  bold,  straightfor- 
ward course  in  defense  of  Royalist  principles ;  and  she  could  hard- 
ly believe  in  the  honesty  of  a  man  who  for  any  object  whatever 
could  seem  to  disregard  or  to  despise  them.  Her  feelings  may 
be  shown  by  some  extracts  from  one  of  her  letters  to  the  emper- 
or written  just  after  one  of  Mirabeau's  most  violent  outbursts,  ap- 


*  He  said  to  La  Marck,  "  Aucun  homme  seul  ne  sera  capable  de  ramener 
les  Fran9aia  au  bon  sens,  le  temps  seul  peut  retablir  1'ordre  dans  les  esprits," 
etc.,  etc. — Mirabeau  et  La  Marck,  i.,  p.  147. 


318  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

patently  his  speech  in  support  of  a  motion  that  the  fleet  should 
be  ordered  to  hoist  the  tricolor  flag. 

"  October  22d,  1790. 

"  We  are  again  fallen  back  into  chaos  and  all  our  old  distrust. 
Mirabeau  had  sent  the  king  some  notes,  a  little  violent  in  lan- 
guage, but  well  argued,  on  the  necessity  of  preventing  the  usurpa- 
tions of  the  Assembly ....  when,  on  a  question  concerning  the 
fleet,  he  delivered  a  speech  suited  only  to  a  violent  demagogue, 
enough  to  frighten  all  honest  men.  Here,  again,  all  our  hopes 
from  that  quarter  are  overthrown.  The  king  is  indignant,  and  I 
am  in  despair.  He  has  written  to  one  of  his  friends,  in  whom  I 
have  great  confidence,  a  man  of  courage  and  devoted  to  us,  an  ex- 
planatory letter,  which  seems  to  me  neither  an  explanation  nor 
an  excuse.  The  man  is  a  volcano  which  would  set  an  empire 
on  fire ;  and  we  are  to  trust  to  him  to  put  out  the  conflagration 
which  is  devouring  us.  He  will  have  a  great  deal  to  do  before 
•we  can  feel  confidence  in  him  again.  La  Marck  defends  Mira- 
beau, and  maintains  that  if  at  times  he  breaks  away,  he  is  still  in 

reality  faithful  to  the  monarchy The  king  will  not  believe 

this.  He  was  greatly  irritated  yesterday.  La  Marck  says  that 
he  has  no  doubt  that  Mirabeau  thought  that  he  was  acting  well 
in  speaking  as  he  did,  to  throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  Assembly, 
and  so  to  obtain  greater  credit  when  circumstances  still  more 
grave  should  arise.  O  my  God !  if  we  have  committed  faults,  we 
have  sadly  expiated  them."* 

And  before  the  end  of  the  year,  the  royal  cause  had  fresh  diffi- 
culties thrown  in  its  way  by  the  perverse  and  selfish  wronghead- 
edness  of  the  emigrant  princes,  who  were  already  evincing  an  in- 
clination to  pursue  objects  of  their  own,  and  to  disown  all  obedi- 
ence to  the  king,  on  the  plea  that  he  was  no  longer  master  of  his 
policy  or  of  his  actions.  They  showed  such  open  disregard  of  his 
remonstrances  that,  in  December,  as  Marie  Antoinette  told  the  em- 
peror, Louis  had  written  both  to  the  Count  d'Artois  and  to  the 
King  of  Sardinia  (in  whose  dominions  the  count  was  at  the  time), 
that,  if  his  brothers  persisted  in  their  designs,  "  he  should  be  com- 
pelled to  disavow  them  peremptorily,  and  summon  all  his  subjects 
who  were  still  faithful  to  him  to  return  to  their  obedience.  She 
hoped,"  she  said,  "  that  that  would  make  them  pause.  It  seemed 
certain  to  her  that  no  one  but  those  on  the  spot,  no  one  but  them- 

*  Feuillet  de  Conches,  i.,  p.  376. 


HER  LETTER  TO  LEOPOLD.  319 

selves,  could  judge  what  moments  and  what  circumstances  were 
favorable  for  action,  so  as  to  put  an  end  to  their  own  miseries  and 
to  those  of  France.  And  it  will  be  then,"  she  concludes,  "my 
dear  brother,  that  I  shall  reckon  on  your  friendship,  and  that  I 
shall  address  myself  to  you  with  the  confidence  with  which  I  am 
inspired  by  the  feelings  of  your  heart,  which  are  well  known  to 
me,  and  by  the  good-will  which  you  have  shown  us  on  all  occa- 
sions."* 

*  Marie  Antoinette  to  Leopold,  date  December  llth,  1790,  Arneth,  p.  143. 


320  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Louis  and  Marie  Antoinette  contemplate  Foreign  Intervention. — The  Assem- 
bly passes  Laws  to  subordinate  the  Church  to  the  Civil  Power. — Insolence 
of  La  Fayette. — Marie  Antoinette  refuses  to  quit  France  by  Herself. — The 
Jacobins  and  La  Fayette  try  to  revive  the  Story  of  the  Necklace. — Marie  An- 
toinette with  her  Family. — Flight  from  Paris  is  decided  on. — The  Queen's 
Preparations  and  Views. — An  Oath  to  observe  the  new  Ecclesiastical  Con- 
stitution is  imposed  on  the  Clergy. — The  King's  Aunts  leave  France. 

THE  last  sentence  of  the  letter  just  quoted  points  to  a  new  hope 
which  the  king  and  she  had  begun  to  entertain  of  obtaining  aid 
from  foreign  princes.  As  it  can  hardly  have  been  suggested  to 
them  by  any  other  advisers,  we  may  probably  attribute  the  orig- 
ination of  the  idea  to  the  queen,  who  was  naturally  inclined  to 
rate  the  influence  of  the  empire  highly,  and  to  rely  on  her  broth- 
er's zeal  to  assist  her  confidently.  And  Louis  caught  at  it,  as  the 
only  means  of  extricating  him  from  a  religious  difficulty  which 
was  causing  him  great  distress,  and  which  appeared  to  him  insur- 
mountable by  any  means  which  he  could  command  in  his  own 
country.  As  has  been  already  seen,  he  had  had  no  hesitation  in 
yielding  up  his  own  prerogatives,  and  in  making  any  concessions 
or  surrenders  which  the  Assembly  required,  so  long  as  they  touch- 
ed nothing  but  his  own  authority.  He  had  even  (which  was  a  far 
greater  sacrifice  in  his  eyes)  sanctioned  the  votes  which  had  de- 
prived the  Church  of  its  property ;  but  in  the  course  of  the  au- 
tumn the  Assembly  passed  other  measures  also,  which  appeared  to 
him  absolutely  inconsistent  with  religion.  They  framed  a  new 
ecclesiastical  constitution  which  not  only  reduced  the  number  of 
bishops  (which,  indeed,  in  France,  as  in  all  other  Roman  Catholic 
countries,  had  been  unreasonably  excessive),  but  which  also  vested 
the  whole  patronage  of  the  Church  in  the  municipal  authorities, 
and  generally  subordinated  the  Church  to  the  civil  law.  And  hav- 
ing completed  these  arrangements,  which  to  a  conscientious  Ro- 
man Catholic  bore  the  character  of  sacrilege,  they  required  the 
whole  body  of  the  clergy  to  accept  them,  and  to  take  an  oath  to 
observe  them  faithfully. 

Louis  was  in  a  great  strait.     Many  of  the  chief  prelates  appeal- 


INSOLENCE  OF  LA  FA7ETTE.  321 

ed  to  him  for  protection,  which  he  thought  his  duty  as  a  Chris- 
tian man  bound  him  to  afford  them.  But  the  protection  which 
they  implored  could  only  be  given  by  refusal  of  the  royal  assent 
to  the  bill.  And  he  could  not  disguise  from  himself  that  such  an 
exercise  of  his  veto  would  furnish  a  pretext  to  his  enemies  for 
more  violent  denunciations  of  himself  and  the  queen  than  had  yet 
been  heard.  He  had  also,  though  his  personal  safety  was  at  all 
times  very  slightly  regarded  by  him,  begun  to  feel  himself  a  pris- 
oner, at  the  mercy  of  his  enemies.  La  Fayette,  as  Commander-in- 
chief  of  the  National  Guard  of  Paris,  had  the  protection  of  the 
royal  palace  intrusted  to  him  ;  and  he  availed  himself  of  this 
charge,  not  as  the  guardian  of  the  royal  family,  but  rather  as  their 
jailer,*  placing  his  sentries  so  as  to  be  spies  and  a  restraint  upon 
all  their  movements,  and  seeking  every  opportunity  to  gain  an 
ignoble  popularity  by  an  ostentatious  disregard  of  all  their  wish- 
es, and  of  all  courtesy,  not  to  say  decency,  in  his  behavior  to 
them.f  And  these  considerations  led  the  king,  not  only  to  au- 
thorize the  Baron  de  Breteuil,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  had  fled 
from  the  country  in  the  previous  year,  to  treat  with  any  foreign 
princes  who  might  be  willing  to  exert  themselves  in  his  cause, 
but  even  to  write,  with  his  own  hand,  to  the  principal  sovereigns, 
informing  them  that  "  in  spite  of  his  acceptance  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, the  factious  portion  of  his  subjects  openly  manifested  their 
intention  of  destroying  the  monarchy,"  and  suggesting  the  idea 
of  "  an  armed  congress  of  the  principal  powers  of  Europe,  sup- 
ported by  an  armed  force,  as  the  best  measure  to  arrest  the  prog- 
ress of  factions,  to  re-establish  order  in  France,  and  to  prevent  the 
evils  which  were  devouring  his  country  from  seizing  on  the  oth- 
er states  of  Europe. "J 

The  historians  of  the  democratic  party  have  denounced  with 
great  severity  the  conduct  of  Louis  in  thus  appealing  to  foreign 

*  The  Marshal  de  Bouille,  who  was  La  Fayette's  cousin,  says,  in  October  of 
this  year,  "L'eveque  de  Farmers  me  fit  le  tableau  de  la  situation  malheureux 
de  ce  prince  et  de  la  famille  royale que  la  rigueur  et  durete  de  La  Fay- 
ette, devenu  leur  geolier,  rendent  de  jour  en  jour  plus  insupportable." — Jfi- 
moires  de  De  JBoiiille,  pp.  175,  181.  And  in  June  he  had  remarked,  "Que  sa 
popularite  (de  La  Fayette)  dSpendait  plutot  de  la  captivit6  du  roi,  qu'il  tenait 
prisonnier,  et  qui  etait  sous  sa  garde,  que  de  sa  force  personnelle,  qui  n'avait 
{>l»i9  d'autri  appui  que  la  milice  Parisiennne." 

f  /6wi,p.  130. 

j  The  letter  to  the  King  of  Prussia  is  given  by  Lamartine ;  its  date  is  De- 
cember 8d,  1790. — Hutoire  des  GHrondins,  book  v.,  §  12. 

21 


LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE, 

aid,  as  a  proof  that,  in  spite  of  his  acceptance  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, he  was  meditating  a  counter-revolution.  The  whole  tenor 
of  his  and  the  queen's  correspondence  proves  that  this  charge  is 
groundless ;  but  it  is  equally  certain  that  it  was  an  impolitic  step, 
one  wholly  opposed  to  every  idea  of  Constitutional  principles,  of 
which  the  very  foundation  must  always  be  perfect  freedom  from 
foreign  influence,  and  from  foreign  connection  in  the  internal 
government  of  the  country. 

Fortunately,  his  secret  was  well  kept,  so  that  no  knowledge  of 
this  step  reached  the  leaders  of  the  popular  party ;  and,  however 
great  may  have  been  the  queen's  secret  anxieties  and  fears,  she 
kept  them  bravely  to  herself,  displaying  outwardly  a  serenity  and 
a  patience  which  won  the  admiration  of  all  those  who,  in  foreign 
countries,  were  watching  the  course  of  events  in  France  with  in- 
terest.* When  she  wept,  she  wept  by  herself.  Her  one  com- 
fort was  that  her  children  were  always  with  her ;  and  though  the 
dauphin  could  only  witness  without  understanding  her  grief,  "  re- 
marking on  one  occasion,  when  in  one  of  his  childish  books  he 
met  the  expression '  as  happy  as  a  queen,'  that  all  queens  are  not 
happy,  for  his  mamma  wept  from  morning  till  night."  Her 
daughter  was  old  enough  to  enter  into  her  sorrows ;  and,  as  she 
writes  to  Madame  de  Polignac,  mingles  her  own  tears  with  hers. 
She  had  also  the  society  of  her  sister-in-law  Elizabeth,  whom  she 
had  learned  to  love  with  an  affection  which  could  not  be  exceed- 
ed even  by  that  which  she  bore  her  own  sister,  and  which  was 
cordially  returned.  She  tells  Madame  de  Polignac  that  Eliza- 
beth's calmness  is  one  great  relief  and  support  to  them  all ;  and 
Elizabeth  can  not  find  adequate  words  to  express  to  one  of  her 
correspondents  her  admiration  for  the  queen's  "  piety  and  resig- 
nation, which  alone  enable  her  to  bear  up  against  troubles  such 
as  no  one  before  has  ever  known." 

But  amidst  all  her  griefs  she  cherishes  hope — hope  that  the 
people  (the  "  good  people,"  as  she  invariably  terms  them)  will  re- 
turn to  their  senses;  and  her  other  habitual  feeling  of  benevo- 
lence, though  she  can  now  only  exert  it  in  forming  projects  for 
conferring  further  benefits  on  them  when  tranquillity  should  be 
restored.  The  feeling  shows  itself  even  in  letters  which  have  no 
reference  to  her  own  position.  There  had  been  discontent  and 

*  Mercy  to  Marie  Antoinette,  from  The  Hague,  December  17tb,  1790,  Feuillet 
de  Conches,  i.,  p.  398. 


SHE  REFUSES  TO  LEAVE  FRANCE.  323 

signs  of  insurrection  in  the  Netherlands  which  Mercy's  recent  let- 
ters led  her  to  believe  were  passing  away;  and  her  congratula- 
tions to  her  brother  on  this  peaceful  result  dwell  on  the  happi- 
ness "  which  it  is  to  be  able  to  pardon  one's  subjects  without 
shedding  one  drop  of  blood,  of  which  sovereigns  are  bound  to  be 
always  careful."* 

Her  brother,  and  many  of  her  friends  in  France,  were  at  this 
time  pressing  her  to  quit  the  country,  professing  to  believe  that 
if  her  enemies  knew  that  she  was  out  of  their  reach,  they  would 
be  less  vehement  in  their  hostility  to  the  king ;  but  she  felt  that 
such  a  course  would  be  both  unworthy  of  her,  as  timid  and  self- 
ish, and  in  every  way  injurious  rather  than  beneficial  to  her  hus- 
band. It  could  not  save  his  authority,  which  was  what  the  Jaco- 
bins made  it  their  first  object  to  destroy ;  and  it  would  deprive 
him  of  the  support  of  her  affection  and  advice,  which  he  constantly 
needed. 

"  Pardon  me,  I  beg  of  you,"  she  replied  to  Leopold,  "  if  I  con- 
tinue to  reject  your  advice  to  leave  Paris.  Consider  that  I  do 
not  belong  to  myself.  My  duty  is  to  remain  where  Providence 
has  placed  me,  and  to  oppose  my  body,  if  the  necessity  should 
arise,  to  the  knives  of  the  assassins  who  would  fain  reach  the 
king.  I  should  be  unworthy  of  the  name -of  our  mother, -which  is 
as  dear  to  you  as  to  me,  if  danger  could  make  me  desert  the  king 
and  my  children."! 

We  have  seen  that  Marie  Antoinette  dreaded  calumny  more 
than  the  knife  or  poison  of  the  assassin ;  and  there  could  hardly 
have  been  a  greater  proof  how  well  founded  her  .apprehensions 
were,  and  how  unscrupulous  her  enemies,  than  is  afforded  by  the 
fact  that,  in  the  latter  part  of  this  year,  they  actually  brought 
back  Madame  La  Mothe  to  Paris  with  the  purpose  of  making  a 
demand  for  a  re  -  investigation  of  the  whole  story  of  the  fraud 
on  the  jeweler — a  pretense  for  reviving  the  libelous  stories  to  the 
disparagement  of  the  queen,  the  utter  falsehood  and  absurdity  of 
which  had  been  demonstrated  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  whole 
world  four  years  before.  Nor  was  it  wholly  a  Jacobin  plot.  La 
Fayette  himself  was,  to  a  certain  extent,  an  accomplice  in  it  As 
commander  of  the  National  Guard  of  the  city,  it  was  his  duty  to 
apprehend  one  who  was  an  escaped  convict ;  but  instead  of  doing 


*  Feuillet  de  Conches,  i.,  p.  401. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  403,  date  December  27th,  1790, 


324  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

so  he  preferred  identifying  himself  with  her,  and  on  one  occasion 
had  what  Mirabeau  rightly  called  the  inconceivable  insolence  to 
threaten  the  queen  with  a  divorce  on  the  ground  of  unfaithful- 
ness to  her  husband.  She  treated  his  insinuations  with  the  dig- 
nity which  became  herself,  and  the  scorn  which  they  and  their 
utterers  deserved;  and  he  found  that  his  conduct  had  created 
such  general  disgust  among  all  people  who  made  the  slightest  pre- 
tense to  decency,  that  he  feared  to  lose  his  popularity  if  he  did 
not  disconnect  himself  from  the  plotters.  Accordingly,  he  sepa- 
rated himself  from  the  lady,  though  he  still  forbore  to  arrest  her, 
and  for  some  time  confined  himself  to  his  old  course  of  heaping 
on  the  royal  family  these  petty  annoyances  and  insults,  which  he 
could  inflict  with  impunity  because  they  were  unobserved  except 
b^  his  victims.  It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  Mirabeau,  who 
held  him  in  a  contempt  which,  however  deserved,  had  in  it  some 
touch  of  rivalry  and  envy,  believed  that  the  queen  was  not  really 
so  much  the  object  of  his  animosity  as  the  king.  In  his  eyes 
"all  the  manoeuvres  of  La  Fayette  were  so  many  attacks  on  the 
queen ;  and  his  attacks  on  the  queen  were  so  many  steps  to  bring 
him  within  reach  of  the  king.  It  was  the  king  whom  he  really 
wanted  to  strike ;  and  he  saw  that  the  individual  safety  of  one 
of  the  royal  pair  was  as  inseparable  from  that  of  the  other  as  the 
king  was  from  his  crown."*  And  this  opinion  of  Mirabeau  is 
strongly  corroborated  by  the  Count  de  la  Marck,  who,  a  few 
weeks  later,  had  occasion  to  go  to  Alsace,  and  who  took  great 
pains  to  ascertain  the  general  state  of  public  feeling  in  the  dis- 
tricts through  which  he  passed.  During  his  absence  he  was  in 
constant  correspondence  with  those  whom  he  had  left  behind,  and 
he  reports  with  great  satisfaction  that  in  no  part  of  the  country 
had  he  found  the  very  slightest  ill-feeling  toward  the  queen.  It 
was  in  Paris  alone  that  the  different  libels  against  her  were 
forged,  and  there  alone  that  they  found  acceptance ;  and,  mani- 
festly referring  to  the  projected  departure  from  Paris,  he  express- 
es his  firm  conviction  that  the  moment  that  she  is  at  liberty,  and 
able  to  show  herself  in  the  provinces,  she  will  win  the  confidence 
of  all  classes.f 

However  greatly  Mirabeau  would,  on  other  grounds,  have  pre- 


*  "  Mirabeau  et  La  Marck,"  ii.,  pp.  67-61. 

f  Letter  to  the  queen,  date  February  19th,  1791 ;  "  Correspondance  de  Mi- 
rabeau et  La  Marck,"  ii.,  p.  229. 


HER   CONTINUED  GOOD  HEALTH.  325 

ferred  personal  intercourse  with  the  court,  he  thought  that  his 
power  of  usefulness  depended  so  entirely  on  his  connection  with 
it  being  unsuspected,  that  he  did  not  think  it  prudent  to  solicit 
interviews  with  the  queen.  But  he  kept  up  a  constant  commu- 
nication with  the  court,  sometimes  by  notes  and  elaborate  me- 
morials, addressed  indeed  to  Louis,  but  intended  for  Marie  Antoi- 
nette's perusal  and  consideration ;  and  sometimes  by  conversa- 
tions with  La  Marck,  which  the  count  was  expected  to  repeat  to 
her.  But,  in  all  the  counsels  thus  given,  the  thing  most  to  be  re- 
marked is  the  high  opinion  which  they  invariably  display  of  the 
queen's  resolution  and  ability.  Every  thing  depends  on  her;  it 
is  from  her  alone  that  he  wishes  to  receive  instructions ;  it  is  her 
resolution  that  must  supply  the  deficiencies  of  all  around  her. 
When  he  urges  that  a  line  of  conduct  should  be  adopted  calcu- 
lated to  render  their  majesties  more  popular;  that  they  should 
show  themselves  more  in  public;  that  they  should  walk  in  the 
most  frequented  places ;  that  they  should  visit  the  hospitals,  the 
artisans'  workshops,  and  make  themselves  friends  by  acts  of  char- 
ity and  generosity,  it  is  to  her  that  he  looks  to  carry  out  his  sug- 
gestions, and  to  her  affability  and  presence  of  mind  that  he  trusts 
for  the  success  which  is  to  result  from  them  ;*  and  La  Marck  is 
equally  convinced  that  "her  ability  and  resolution  are  equal  to 
the  conduct  of  affairs  of  the  first  importance." 

Meantime  her  health  continued  good.  It  showed  her  strength 
of  mind  that  she  never  intermitted  the  recreations  which  contrib- 
uted to  her  strength,  about  which  she  was  especially  anxious,  that 
she  might  at  all  times  be  ready  to  act  on  any  emergency;  but 
rode  with  Elizabeth  with  great  regularity  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne, 
even  in  the  depth  of  the  winter;  and,  while  watching  with  her 
habitual  vigilance  of  affection  over  the  education  of  her  children, 
she  found  a  pleasant  relaxation  for  herself  in  providing  them  with 
amusement  also ;  often  arranging  parties,  to  which  other  children 
of  the  same  age  were  invited,  and  finding  amusement  herself 
from  watching  their  gambols  in  the  long  corridor  of  the  Tuile- 
ries,  their  blindman's-buff  and  hide-and-seek. f 

The  new  year  opened  with  grave  plans  for  their  extrication 
from  their  troubles — plans  requiring  the  utmost  forethought,  in- 
genuity, and  secrecy  to  bring  them  to  a  successful  issue ;  and  also 

*  "  Mirabeau  et  La  Marck,"  ii.,  pp.  153,  194,  ft  passim. 
f  "  Souvenirs  de  Quarante  Ans,"  p.  54. 


326-  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

with  fresh  injuries  and  insults  from  the  Assembly  and  the  munic- 
ipal authorities,  which  every  week  made  the  necessity  of  prompt- 
itude in  carrying  such  plans  out  more  manifest.  Mirabeau,  as 
we  have  seen,  had  from  the  very  first  recommended  that  the  king 
and  his  family  should  withdraw  from  Paris.  In  his  eyes  such  a 
step  was  the  indispensable  preliminary  to  all  other  measures ;  and 
some  of  the  earliest  of  the  queen's  letters  in  1791  show  that  thp 
resolution  to  leave  the  turbulent  city  had  at  last  been  taken. 
But  though  what  he  recommended  was  to  be  done,  it  was  not  to 
be  done  as  he  recommended;  yet  there  was  a  manliness  about 
the  course  of  action  which  he  proposed  which  would  of  itself  have 
won  the  queen's  preference,  if  she  had  not  been  forced  to  consid- 
er not  what  was  best  and  fittest,  but  what  it  was  most  easy  to  in- 
duce him  on  whom  the  final  choice  must  depend,  the  king,  to 
adopt.  Mirabeau  advised  that  the  king  should  depart  publicly, 
in  open  day,  "  like  a  king,"  as  he  expressed  himself,*  and  he  af- 
firmed his  conviction  that  it  would  in  all  probability  be  quite  un- 
necessary to  remove  farther  than  Compiegne ;  but  that  the  mo- 
ment that  it  should  be  known  that  the  king  was  out  of  Paris,  pe- 
titions demanding  the  re-establishment  of  order  would  flock  in 
from  every  quarter  of  the  kingdom,  and  public  opinion,  which 
was  for  the  most  part  royalist,  would  compel  the  Assembly  to 
modify  the  Constitution  which  it  had  framed,  or,  if  it  should 
prove  refractory,  would  support  the  king  in  dissolving  it  and  con- 
voking another. 

But  this  was  too  bold  a  step  for  Louis  to  decide  on.  He  an- 
ticipated that  the  Assembly  or  the  mob  might  endeavor  to  pre- 
vent such  a  movement  by  force,  which  could  only  be  repelled  by 
force ;  and  force  he  was  resolved  never  to  employ.  The  only  al- 
ternative was  to  flee  secretly ;  and  in  the  course  of  January,  Mercy 
learns  that  that  plan  has  been  adopted,  and  that  Compiegne  is 
not  considered  sufficiently  distant  from  Paris,  but  that  some  forti- 
fied place  will  be  selected  ;  Valenciennes  being  the  most  likely,  as 
he  himself  imagined,  since,  if  farther  flight  should  become  neces- 
sary, it  would  be  easy  from  thence  to  cross  the  frontier  into  the 
Belgian  dominions  of  the  queen's  brother.  But  if  Valenciennes 
had  ever  been  thought  of,  it  was  rejected  on  that  very  account; 
for  Louis  had  learned  from  English  history  that  the  withdrawal 

*  "  Mirabeau  aurait  prefei-6  que  Louis  XVI.  sortit  publiquement,  et  en  roi, 
M.  de  Bouill6  pensait  de  meme." — Mirabeau  et  La  Marck,  i.,  p.  172. 


THE  PLAN  ADOPTED.  327 

of  James  II.  from  his  kingdom  had  been  alleged  as  one  reason 
for  declaring  the  throne  vacant ;  and  he  was  resolved  not  to  give 
his  enemies  any  plea  for  passing  a  similar  resolution  with  respect 
to  himself.  Valenciennes  was  so  celebrated  as  a  frontier  town, 
that  the  mere  fact  of  his  fixing  himself  there  might  easily  be  rep- 
resented as  an  evidence  of  his  intention  to  quit  the  kingdom. 
But  there  was  a  small  town  of  considerable  strength  named  Mont- 
medy, in  the  district  under  the  command  of  the  Marquis  de  Bouil- 
le, which  afforded  all  the  advantages  of  Valenciennes,  and  did  not 
appear  equally  liable  to  the  same  objections.  Montmedy,  there- 
fore, was  fixed  upon ;  and,  in  the  very  first  week  of  February, 
Marie  Antoinette  announced  the  decision  to  Mercy;  and  began 
her  own  preparations  by  sending  him  a  jewel-case  full  of  those 
diamonds  which  were  her  private  property.  She  explained  to 
him  at  considerable  length  the  reasons  which  had  dictated  the 
choice.  The  very  smallness  of  Montmedy  was  in  itself  a  rec- 
ommendation, since  it  would  prevent  any  one  from  thinking  it 
likely  to  be  selected  as  a  refuge.  It  was  also  so  near  Luxem- 
bourg that,  in  the  present  temper  of  the  nation,  which  regarded 
the  Austrian  power  with  "a  panic  fear,"  any  addition  which 
M.  de  Bouille  might  make  to  either  the  garrison  or  to  his  supplies 
would  seem  only  a  wise  precaution  against  the  much-dreaded  for- 
eigner. Moreover,  the  troops  in  that  district  were  among  the 
most  loyal  and  well-disposed  in  the  whole  army ;  and  if  the  king 
should  find  it  unsafe  to  remain  long  at  Montmedy,  he  would  have 
a  trustworthy  escort  to  retreat  to  Alsace. 

She  also  explained  the  reasons  which  had  led  them  to  decide 
on  quitting  Paris  secretly  by  night.  If  they  started  in  the  day- 
time, it  would  be  necessary  to  have  detachments  of  troops  plant- 
ed at  different  spots  on  their  road  to  protect  them.  But  M.  de 
Bouille  could  not  rely  on  all  his  own  regiments  for  such  a  serv- 
ice, and  still  less  on  the  National  Guards  in  the  different  towns ; 
while  to  bring  up  fresh  forces  from  distant  quarters  would  at- 
tract attention,  and  awaken  suspicions  beforehand  which  might 
be  fatal  to  the  enterprise.  Montmedy,  therefore,  had  been  de- 
cided on,  and  the  plans  were  already  so  far  settled  that  she  could 
tell  Mercy  that  they  should  take  Madame  de  Tourzel  with  them, 
and  travel  in  one  single  carriage,  which  they  had  never  been  seen 
to  use  before. 

Their  preparations  had  even  gone  beyond  these  details,  minute 
as  they  were.  The  king  was  already  collecting  materials  for  a 


328  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

manifesto  which  he  designed  to  publish  the  moment  that  he 
found  himself  safely  out  of  Paris.  It  would  explain  the  reasons 
for  his  flight ;  it  would  declare  an  amnesty  to  the  people  in  gen- 
eral, to  whom  it  would  impute  no  worse  fault  than  that  of  being 
misled  (none  being  excepted  but  the  chief  leaders  of  the  disloyal 
factions ;  the  city  of  Paris,  unless  it  should  at  once  return  to  its 
ancient  tranquillity ;  and  any  persons  or  bodies  who  might  persist 
in  remaining  in  arms).  To  the  nation  in  general  the  manifesto 
would  breathe  nothing  but  affection.  The  Parliaments  would  be 
re-established,  but  only  as  judicial  tribunals,  which  should  have  no 
pretense  to  meddle  with  the  affairs  of  administration  or  finance. 
In  short,  the  king  and  she  had  determined  to  take  his  declaration 
of  the  23d  of  June*  as  the  basis  of  the  Constitution,  with  such 
modifications  as  subsequent  circumstances  might  have  suggested. 
Religion  would  be  one  of  the  matters  placed  in  the  foreground. 

So  sanguine  were  they,  or  rather  was  she,  of  success,  that  she 
had  even  taken  into  consideration  the  principles  on  which  future 
ministries  should  be  constituted ;  and  here  for  the  first  time  she 
speaks  of  herself  as  chiefly  concerned  in  planning  the  future  ar- 
rangements. "  In  private  we  occupy  ourselves  with  discussing 
the  very  difficult  choice  which  we  shall  have  to  make  of  the  per- 
sons whom  we  shall  desire  to  call  around  us  when  we  are  at  lib- 
erty. I  think  that  it  will  be  best  to  place  a  single  man  at  the 
head  of  affairs,  as  M.  Maurepas  was  formerly ;  and  if  it  be  settled 
in  this  way,  the  king  would  thus  escape  having  to  transact  busi- 
ness with  each  individual  minister  separately,  and  affairs  would 
proceed  more  uniformly  and  more  steadily.  Tell  me  what  you 
think  of  this  idea.  The  fit  man  is  not  easy  to  find,  and  the  more 
I  look  for  him,  the  greater  inconveniences  do  I  see  in  all  that  oc- 
cur to  me." 

She  proceeds  to  discuss  foreign  affairs,  the  probable  views  and 
future  conduct  of  almost  every  power  in  Europe — of  Holland, 
Prussia,  Spain,  Sweden,  England ;  still  showing  the  lingering  jeal- 
ousy which  she  entertained  of  the  British  Government,  which  she 
suspected  of  wishing  to  detach  the  chivalrous  Gustavus  from  the 
alliance  of  France  by  the  offer  of  a  subsidy.  But  she  is  sanguine 
that,  though  some  may  be  glad  to  see  the  influence  of  France  di- 
minished, no  wise  statesman  in  any  country  can  desire  her  ruin  or 
dismemberment.  What  is  going  on  in  France  would  be  an  ex- 

*  1789,  see  ante,  p.  256. 


OPPRESSION  OF  THE  CLERGY.  329 

ample  too  dangerous  to  other  countries,  if  it  were  left  unpunished. 
Their  cause  is  the  cause  of  all  kings,  and  not  a  simple  political 
difficulty."* 

The  whole  letter  is  a  most  remarkable  one,  and  fully  bears  out 
the  eulogies  which  all  who  had  an  opportunity  of  judging  pro- 
nounced on  her  ability.  But  the  most  striking  reflection  which 
it  suggests  is  with  what  admirable  sagacity  the  whole  of  the  ar- 
rangements for  the  flight  of  the  royal  family  had  been  concert- 
ed, and  with  what  judgment  the  agents  had  been  chosen,  since, 
though  the  enterprise  was  not  attempted  till  more  than  four 
months  after  this  letter  was  written,  the  secret  was  kept  through 
the  whole  of  that  time  without  the  slightest  hint  of  it  having  been 
given,  or  the  slightest  suspicion  of  it  having  been  conceived,  by 
the  most  watchful  or  the  most  malignant  of  the  king's  enemies. 

Yet  during  the  winter  and  early  spring  the  conduct  of  the  Jac- 
obin party  in  the  Assembly,  and  of  the  Parisian  mob  whom  they 
were  keeping  in  a  constant  state  of  excitement,  increased  in  vio- 
lence ;  while  one  occurrence  which  took  place  was,  in  Mirabeau's 
opinion,  especially  calculated  to  prompt  a  suspicion  of  the  king's  in- 
tentions. Louis  had  at  last,  and  with  extreme  reluctance,  sanction- 
ed the  bill  which  required  the  clergy  to  take  an  oath  to  comply 
with  the  new  ecclesiastical  arrangements,  in  the  vain  hope  that  the 
framers  of  it  would  be  content  with  their  triumph,  and  would  for- 
bear to  enforce  it  by  fixing  any  precise  date  for  administering  the 
oath.  But,  at  the  end  of  January,  Barnave  obtained  from  the  As- 
sembly a  decree  that  it  should  be  taken  within  twenty-four  hours, 
under  the  penalty  of  deprivation  of  all  their  preferments  to  all  who 
should  refuse  it ;  the  clerical  members  of  the  Assembly  were  even 
threatened  by  the  mob  in  the  galleries  with  instant  death  if  they 
declined  or  even  delayed  to  swear.  And  as  very  few  of  any  rank 
complied,  the  main  body  of  the  clergy  was  instantly  stripped  of 
all  their  appointments  and  reduced  to  beggary,  and  a  large  pro- 
portion of  them  fled  at  once  from  the  kingdom.  Those  who  took 
the  oath,  and  who  in  consequence  were  appointed  to  the  offices 
thus  vacated,  were  immediately  condemned  and  denounced  by  the 
pope;  and  the  consequence  was  that  a  great  number  of  their 
flocks  fled  with  their  old  priests,  not  being  able  to  reconcile  to 
their  consciences  to  stay  and  receive  the  sacrament  and  rites  of 
the  Church  from  ministers  under  the  ban  of  its  head. 

*  Date  February  13th,  1791,  Feuillet  de  Conches,  i.,  p.  465. 


330  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

Among  those  who  thus  fled  were  the  king's  two  aunts,  the 
Princesses  Adelaide  and  Victoire.  Bigotry  was  their  only  virtue ; 
and  they  determined  to  seek  shelter  in  Rome.  Louis  highly  dis- 
approved of  the  step,  which,  as  Mirabeau,*  in  a  very  elaborate 
and  forcible  memorial  which  he  drew  up  and  submitted  to  him, 
pointed  out,  might  be  very  dangerous  for  the  king  and  queen  as 
well  as  for  themselves,  since  it  could  be  easily  represented  by  the 
evil-minded  as  a  certain  proof  that  they  also  were  designing  to 
flee.  And  he  even  recommended  that  Louis  should  formally  no- 
tify to  the  Assembly  that  he  disapproved  of  his  aunts'  journey, 
and  should  make  it  a  pretext  for  demanding  a  law  which  should 
give  him  the  power  of  regulating  the  movements  of  the  members 
of  his  family. 

The  flight  of  the  princesses,  however,  did  not,  as  it  turned  out, 
cause  any  inconvenience  to  the  king  or  queen,  though  it  did  en- 
danger themselves;  for,  though  they  were  furnished  with  pass- 
ports, the  municipal  authorities  tried  to  stop  them  at  Moret ;  and 
at  Arnay-le-Duc  the  mob  unharnessed  their  horses  and  detained 
them  by  force.  They  appealed  to  the  Assembly  by  letter ;  Alex- 
ander Lameth,  on  this  occasion  uniting  with  the  most  violent  Jac- 
obins, was  not  ashamed  to  move  that  orders  should  be  dispatched 
to  send  them  back  to  Paris :  but  the  body  of  the  Assembly  had 
not  yet  descended  to  the  baseness  of  warring  with  women  ;  and 
Mirabeau,  who  treated  the  proposal  as  ridiculous,  and  overwhelm- 
ed the  mover  with  his  wit,  had  no  difficulty  in  procuring  an  order 
that  the  fugitives,  "  two  princesses  of  advanced  age  and  timorous 
consciences,"  as  he  called  them,  should  be  allowed  to  proceed  on 
their  journey. 

*  "  Mirabeau  et  La  Marck,"  ii.,p.,  216,  date  February  3d,  1791. 


A  TUMULT  AT  VINCENNES.  331 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

The  Mob  attacks  the  Castle  at  Vincennes. — La  Fayette  saves  it. — He  insults 
the  Nobles  who  come  to  protect  the  King. — Perverseness  of  the  Count  d'Ar- 
tois  and  the  Emigrants. — Mirabeau  dies. — General  Sorrow  for  his  Death. — 
He  would  probably  not  have  been  able  to  arrest  the  Revolution. — The  Mob 
prevent  the  King  from  visiting  St.  Cloud. — The  Assembly  passes  a  Vote  to 
forbid  him  to  go  more  than  twenty  Leagues  from  Paris. 

THE  mob,  however,  was  more  completely  under  Jacobin  influ- 
ence ;  and,  at  the  end  of  February,  Santerre  collected  his  ruffians 
for  a  fresh  tumult ;  the  object  now  being  the  destruction  of  the 
old  castle  of  Vincennes,  which  for  some  time  had  been  almost  un- 
occupied. La  Fayette,  whose  object  at  this  time  was  apparently 
regulated  by  a  desire  to  make  all  parties  acknowledge  his  influ- 
ence, in  a  momentary  fit  of  resolution  marched  a  body  of  his  Na- 
tional Guard  down  to  save  the  old  fortress,  in  which  he  succeeded, 
though  not  without  much  difficulty,  and  even  some  danger.  He 
found  he  had  greatly  miscalculated  his  influence,  not  only  over  the 
populace,  but  over  his  own  soldiers.  The  rioters  fired  on  him, 
wounding  some  of  his  staff ;  and  at  first  many  of  the  soldiers  re- 
fused to  act  against  the  people.  His  officers,  however,  full  of  in- 
dignation, easily  quelled  the  spirit  of  mutiny ;  and,  when  subordi- 
nation was  restored,  proposed  to  the  general  to  follow  up  his  success 
by  marching  at  once  back  into  the  city  and  seizing  the  Jacobin 
demagogues  who  had  caused  the  riot.  There  was  little  doubt  that 
the  great  majority  of  the  citizens,  in  their  fear  of  Santerre  and 
his  gang,  would  joyfully  have  supported  him  in  such  a  measure ; 
but  La  Fayette's  resolution  was  never  very  consistent  nor  very 
durable.  He  became  terrified,  not,  indeed,  so  much  at  the  risk 
to  his  life  which  he  had  incurred,  as  at  the  symptom  that  to  re- 
sist the  mob  might  cost  him  his  popularity ;  and  to  appease  those 
whom  he  might  have  offended,  he  proceeded  to  insult  the  king. 
A  report  had  got  abroad,  which  was  not  improbably  well  founded, 
that  Louis's  life  had  been  in  danger,  and  that  an  assassin  had  been 
detected  while  endeavoring  to  make  his  way  into  the  Tuileries ; 
and  the  report  had  reached  a  number  of  nobles,  among  whom 


332  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

D'Espremesnil,  once  so  vehement  a  leader  of  the  Opposition  in 
Parliament,  was  conspicuous,  who  at  once  hastened  to  the  palace 
to  defend  their  sovereign.  It  was  not  strange  that  he  and  Marie 
Antoinette  should  receive  them  graciously ;  they  had  not  of  late 
been  used  to  such  warm-hearted  and  prompt  displays  of  attach- 
ment. But  the  National  Guards  who  were  on  duty  were  jealous 
of  the  cordial  and  honorable  reception  which  these  Nobles  met 
with ;  they  declared  that  to  them  alone  belonged  the  task  of  de- 
fending the  king;  though  they  took  so  little  care  to  perform  it 
that  they  had  allowed  a  gang  of  drunken  desperadoes  to  get  pos- 
session of  the  outer  court  of  the  palace,  where  they  were  mena- 
cing all  aristocrats  with  death.  Louis  became  alarmed  for  the 
safety  of  his  friends,  and  begged  them  to  lay  aside  their  arms ; 
and  they  had  hardly  done  so  when  La  Fayette  arrived.  He  knew 
that  the  mob  was  exasperated  with  him  for  his  repression  of  their 
outrages  in  the  morning,  and  that  some  of  his  soldiers  had  not 
been  well  pleased  at  being  compelled  to  act  against  the  rioters. 
So  now,  to  recover  their  good-will,  he  handed  over  the  weapons 
of  the  Nobles,  which  were  only  pistols,  rapiers,  and  daggers,  to 
the  National  Guard;  and  after  reproaching  D'Espremesnil  and 
his  companions  for  interfering  with  the  duties  of  his  troops,  he 
drove  them  down  the  stairs,  unarmed  and  defenseless  as  they 
were,  among  the  drunken  and  infuriated  mob.  They  were  hoot- 
ed and  ill-treated ;  but  not  only  did  he  make  no  attempt  to  pro- 
tect them,  but  the  next  day  he  offered  them  a  gratuitous  insult  by 
the  publication  of  a  general  order,  addressed  to  his  own  National 
Guard,  in  which  he  stigmatized  their  conduct  as  indecent,  their 
professed  zeal  as  suspicious,  and  enjoined  all  the  officials  of  the 
palace  to  take  care  that  such  persons  were  not  admitted  in  future. 
"  The  king  of  the  Constitution,"  he  said,  "  ought  to  be  surround- 
ed by  no  defenders  but  the  soldiers  of  liberty." 

Marie  Antoinette  had  good  reason  to  speak  as  she  did  the  next 
week  to  Mercy  ;  though  we  can  hardly  fail  to  remark,  as  a  singu- 
lar proof  of  the  strength  of  her  political  prejudices,  and  of  the  de- 
gree in  which  she  allowed  them  to  blind  her  to  the  objects  and  the 
worth  of  the  few  honest  or  able  men  whom  the  Assembly  contain- 
ed, that  she  still  regards  the  Constitutionalists  as  only  one  degree 
less  unfavorable  to  the  king's  legitimate  authority  than  the  Jaco- 
bins. And  we  shall  hereafter  see  that  to  this  mistaken  estimate 
she  adhered  almost  to  the  end.  "  Mischief,"  she  says,  "  is  making 
.  progress  so  rapid  that  there  is  reason  to  fear  a  speedy  explosion, 


MISCOlfDUCT  OF  THE  EMIGRANTS.  333 

which  can  not  fail  to  be  dangerous  to  us,  if  we  ourselves  do  not 
guide  it.  There  is  no  middle  way  ;  either  we  must  remain  under 
the  sword  of  the  factions,  and  consequently  be  reduced  to  noth- 
ing, if  they  get  the  upper  hand,  or  we  must  submit  to  be  fettered 
under  the  despotism  of  men  who  profess  to  be  well-intentioned, 
but  who  always  have  done,  and  always  will  do  us  harm.  This  is 
what  is  before  us,  and  perhaps  the  moment  is  nearer  than  we 
think,  if  we  can  not  ourselves  take  a  decided  line,  or  lead  men's 
opinions  by  our  own  vigor  and  energetic  action.  What  I  here  say 
is  not  dictated  by  any  exaggerated  notions,  nor  by  any  disgust  at 
our  position,  nor  by  any  restless  desire  to  be  doing  something.  I 
perfectly  feel  all  the  dangers  and  risks  to  which  we  are  exposed 
at  this  moment.  But  I  see  that  all  around  us  affairs  are  so  full' 
of  terror  that  it  is  better  to  perish  in  trying  to  save  ourselves  than 
to  allow  ourselves  to  be  utterly  crushed  in  a  state  of  absolute  in- 
action."* 

And  she  held  the  same  language  to  her  brother,  the  emperor,  as- 
suring him  that  "  the  king  and  herself  were  both  convinced  of  the 
necessity  of  acting  with  prudence,  but  there  were  cases  in  which 
dilatoriness  might  ruin  every  thing ;  and  that  the  factious  and  dis- 
loyal were  prosecuting  their  objects  with  such  celerity,  aiming  at 
nothing  less  than  the  utter  subversion  of  the  kingly  power,  that  it 
would  be  extremely  dangerous  not  to  offer  a  resistance  to  their 
plans."f  And  referring  to  her  project  of  foreign  aid,  she  report- 
ed to  him  that  she  had  promises  of  assistance  from  both  Spain 
and  Switzerland,  if  they  could  depend  on  the  co-operation  of  the 
empire. 

And  still  the  emigrant  princes  were  adding  to  her  perplexity  by 
their  perverseness.  She  wrote  herself  to  the  Count  d'Artois  to  ex- 
postulate with  him,  and  to  entreat  him  "  not  to  abandon  himself 
to  projects  of  which  the  success,  to  say  the  least,  was  doubtful, 
and  which  would  expose  himself  to  danger  without  the  possibility 
of  serving  the  king."J  No  description  of  the  relative  influence  of 
the  king  and  queen  at  this  time  can  be  so  forcible  as  the  fact  that 
it  was  she  who  conducted  all  the  correspondence  of  the  court,  even 
with  the  king's  brothers.  But  her  remonstrances  had  no  influence. 
We  may  not  impute  to  the  king's  brothers  any  intention  to  injure 

*  Feuillet  de  Conches,  ii.,  p.  14,  date  March  7th. 

f  Arneth,  p.  146,  letter  of  the  queen  to  Leopold,  February  27th,  1791. 

*  Feuillet  de  Conches,  ii.,  p.  20,  date  March  20th,  1791. 


334  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

him ;  but  unhappily  they  had  both  not  only  a  mean  idea  of  his  ca- 
pacity, but  a  very  high  one,  much  worse  founded,  of  their  own ; 
and  full  of  self-confidence  and  self-conceit,  they  took  their  own 
line,  perfectly  regardless  of  the  suspicions  to  which  their  perverse 
and  untractable  conduct  exposed  the  king,  carrying  their  obstina- 
cy so  far  that  it  was  not  without  difficulty,  that  the  emperor  him- 
self, though  they  were  in  his  dominions,  was  able  to  restrain  their 
machinations. 

Meanwhile,  the  queen  was  steadily  carrying  on  the  necessary 
arrangements  for  flight.  Money  had  to  be  provided,  for  which 
trfistworthy  agents  were  negotiating  in  Switzerland  and  Holland, 
while  some  the  emperor  might  be  expected  to  furnish.  Mira- 
beau  marked  out  for  himself  what  he  regarded  as  a  most  impor- 
tant share  in  the  enterprise,  undertaking  to  defend  and  justify 
their  departure  to  the  Assembly,  and  nothing  doubting  that  he 
should  be  able  to  bring  over  the  majority  of  the  members  to  his 
view  of  that  subject,  as  he  had  before  prevailed  upon  them  to 
sanction  the  journey  of  the  princesses.  But  in  the  first  days  of 
April  all  the  hopes  of  success  which  had  been  founded  on  his  co- 
operation and  support  were  suddenly  extinguished  by  his  death. 
Though  he  had  hardly  entered  upon  middle  age,  a  constant  course 
of  excess  had  made  him  an  old  man  before  his  time.  In  the  lat- 
ter part  of  March  he  was  attacked  by  an  illness  which  his  physi- 
cians soon  pronounced  mortal,  and  on  the  2d  of  April  he  died. 
He  had  borne  the  approach  of  death  with  firmness,  professing  to 
regret  it  more  for  the  sake  of  his  country  than  for  his  own.  He 
was  leaving  behind  him  no  one,  as  he  affirmed,  who  would  be 
able  to  arrest  the  Revolution  as  he  could  have  done ;  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  great  bulk  of  the  nation  did  place  con- 
fidence in  his  power  to  offer  effectual  resistance  to  the  designs  of 
the  Jacobins.  The  various  parties  in  the  State  showed  this  feel- 
ing equally  by  the  different  manner  in  which  they  received  the 
intelligence.  The  court  and  the  Royalists  openly  lamented  him. 
The  Jacobins,  the  followers  of  Lameth,  and  the  partisans  of  the 
Duke  of  Orleans,  exhibited  the  most  indecent  exultation.*  But 
the  citizens  of  Paris  mourned  for  him,  apparently,  without  refer- 
ence to  party  views.  They  took  no  heed  of  the  opposition  with 
which  he  had  of  late  often  defeated  the  plots  of  the  leaders  whom 

*  Letter  of  M.  Simotin,  the  Russian  embassador,  April  4th,  1791,  Feuillet  de 
Conches,  ii.,  p.  31. 


AFTER  THE  DEATH  OF  MIR  ABE AU.  335 

they  had  followed  to  riot  and  treason.  They  cast  aside  all  recol- 
lection of  the  denunciations  of  him  as  a  friend  to  the  court  with 
which  the  streets  had  lately  rung.  In  their  eyes  he  was  the  per- 
'  Bonification  of  the  Revolution  as  a  whole ;  to  him,  as  they  viewed 
his  career  for  the  last  two  years,  they  owed  the  independence  of 
the  Assembly,  the  destruction  of  the  Bastile,  and  of  all  other 
abuses ;  and  through  him  they  doubted  not  still  to  obtain  every 
thing  that  was  necessary  for  the  completion  of  their  freedom. 

His  remains  were  treated  with  honors  never  before  paid  to  a 
subject.  He  lay  in  state;  he  had  a  public  funeral.  His  body 
was  laid  in  the  great  Church  of  St.  Genevieve,  which,  the  very 
day  before,  had  been  renamed  the  Pantheon,  and  appropriated  as 
a  cemetery  for  such  of  her  illustrious  sons  as  France  might  here- 
after think  worthy  of  the  national  gratitude.  Yet,  though  his 
great  confidant  and  panegyrist,  M.  Dumont,*  has  devoted  an  elab- 
orate argument  to  prove  that  he  had  not  overestimated  his  pow- 
er to  influence  the  future;  and  though  the  Russian  embassador, 
M.  Simolin,  a  diplomatist  of  extreme  acuteness,  seems  to  imply 
the  same  opinion  by  his  pithy  saying  that  "he  ought  to  have 
lived  two  years  longer,  or  died  two  years  earlier,"  we  can  hardly 
agree  with  them.  La  Marck,  as  has  been  seen,  even  when  first 
opening  the  negotiation  for  his  connection  with  the  court,  doubt- 
ed whether  he  would  be  able  to  undo  the  mischief  which  he  had 
done ;  and  all  experience  shows  that  measures  such  as  he  had  ac- 
quiesced in,  measures  not  of  reform  nor  of  reconstruction,  but  of 
total  abolition  and  destruction,  are  in  their  very  nature  irrevoca- 
ble and  irremediable.  The  nobility  was  gone ;  he  had  not  resist- 
ed its  suppression.  The  Church  was  gone ;  he  had  himself  been 
among  the  foremost  of  its  assailants.  How,  even  if  he  had  wished 
it,  could  he  have  undone  these  acts?  and  if  he  could  not,  how, 
without  those  indispensable  pillars  and  supports,  could  any  mon- 
archy endure  ?  That  he  was  now  fully  alive  to  the  magnitude  of 
the  dangers  which  encompassed  both  throne  and  people,  and  that 
he  would  have  labored  vigorously  to  avert  them,  we  may  do  him 
the  justice  to  believe.  But  it  seems  not  so  probable  that  he 
would  have  succeeded,  as  that  he  would  have  added  one  more  to 
the  list  of  these  politicians  who,  having  allowed  their  own  selfish 
aims  to  carry  them  beyond  the  limits  of  prudence  and  justice, 
have  afterward  found  it  impossible  to  retrace  their  steps,  but  have 

*  "Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau,"  par  Etienne  Dumont,  p.  201. 


336  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

learned  to  their  shame  and  sorrow  that  their  rashness  has  but  led 
to  the  disappointment  of  their  hopes,  the  permanent  downfall  of 
their  own  reputations,  and  the  ruin  of  what  they  would  gladly 
have  defended  and  preserved.  And,  on  the  whole,  it  is  well  that 
from  time  to  time  such  lessons  should  be  impressed  upon  the 
world.  It  is  well  that  men  of  lofty  genius  and  pure  patriotism 
should  learn,  equally  with  the  most  shallow  empiric  or  the  most 
self-seeking  demagogue,  that  false  steps  in  politics  can  rarely  be 
retraced ;  that  concessions  once  made  can  seldom,  if  ever,  be  re- 
called, but  are  usually  the  stepping-stones  to  others  still  more  ex- 
tensive ;  that  what  it  would  have  been  easy  to  preserve,  it  is  com- 
monly impossible  to  repair  or  to  restore. 

He  had  been  laid  in  the  grave  only  a  fortnight,  when,  as  if  on 
purpose  to  show  how  utterly  defenseless  the  king  now  was,  the 
Jacobins  excited  the  mob  and  the  assembly  to  inflict  greater  in- 
sults on  him  than  had  been  offered  even  by  the  attack  on  Ver- 
sailles, or  by  any  previous  vote.  As  Easter,  which  was  unusually 
late  this  year,  approached,  Louis  became  anxious  to  spend  a  short 
time  in  tranquillity  and  holy  meditation ;  and,  since  the  tumultu- 
ousness  of  the  city  was  not  very  favorable  for  such  a  purpose,  he 
resolved  to  pass  a  fortnight  at  St.  Cloud.  But  when  he  was  pre- 
paring to  set  out,  a  furious  mob  seized  the  horses  and  unharness- 
ed them ;  the  National  Guards  united  with  the  rioters,  refusing  to 
obey  La  Fayette's  orders  to  clear  the  way  for  the  royal  carriage, 
and  the  king  and  queen  were  compelled  to  dismount  and  to  return 
to  their  apartments ;  while,  a  day  or  two  afterward,  the  Assembly 
came  to  a  vote  which  seemed  as  if  designed  for  an  express  sanc- 
tion of  this  outrage,  and  which  ordained  that  the  king  should  not 
be  permitted  ever  to  move  more  than  twenty  leagues  from  Paris. 

Of  all  the  decrees  which  it  had  yet  enacted,  this,  in  some  sense, 
may  be  regarded  as  the  most  monstrous.  It  was  not  only  pass- 
ing a  penal  sentence  on  the  royal  family  such  as  in  no  country  or 
age  any  but  convicted  criminals  had  even  been  subjected  to,  but  it 
was  an  insult  and  an  injury  to  every  part  of  the  kingdom  except 
the  capital,  which,  by  an  intolerable  assumption,  it  treated  as  if  it 
were  the  whole  of  France.  Joseph,  as  has  been  seen,  had  wisely 
pointed  out  to  his  brother-in-law  that  it  was  one,  and  no  unim- 
portant part,  of  a  sovereign's  duty  to  visit  the  different  provinces 
and  chief  cities  of  his  kingdom,  and  Louis  had  in  one  instance 
acted  on  his  advice.  We  have  seen  how  gladly  he  was  received 
by  the  citizens  of  Cherbourg,  and  what  advantages  they  promised 


TYRANNY  OF  THE  ASSEMBLY.  337 

themselves  from  his  having  thus  made  himself  personally  acquaint- 
ed with  their  situation  and  wants  and  prospects ;  and  we  can  not 
doubt  that  other  towns  and  cities  shared  this  feeling,  nor  that  it 
was  well  founded,  and  that  the  acquisition  by  a  king  of  a  person- 
al knowledge  of  the  resources  and  capabilities  and  interests  of 
the  great  cities,  of  agriculture,  manufactures,  and  commerce,  is  a 
benefit  to  the  whole  community ;  but  of  this  every  province  and 
every  city  but  Paris  was  now  to  be  deprived.  It  was  to  be  an 
offense  to  visit  Rouen,  or  Lyons,  or  Bordeaux ;  to  examine  Riquet's 
canal  or  Vauban's  fortifications.  The  king  was  the  only  person 
in  the  kingdom  to  whom  liberty  of  movement  was  to  be  denied ; 
and  the  peasants  of  every  province,  and  the  citizens  of  every  oth- 
er town,  were  to  be  refused  for  a  single  day  the  presence  of  their 
sovereign,  whom  the  Parisians  thus  claimed  a  right  to  keep  as  a 
prisoner  in  their  own  district. 

It  is  hardly  strange  that  such  open  attacks  on  their  liberty 
made  a  deeper  impression  on  the  queen,  and  even  on  the  phleg- 
matic disposition  of  the  king,  than  any  previous  act  of  violence,  or 
that  it  increased  their  eagerness  to  escape  with  as  little  delay  as 
possible.  Indeed,  the  queen  regarded  the  public  welfare  as  equal- 
ly concerned  with  their  own  in  their  safe  establishment  in  some 
town  to  which  they  should  also  be  able  to  remove  the  Assem- 
bly, so  that  that  body  as  well  as  themselves  should  be  protected 
from  the  fatal  influence  of  the  clubs  of  Paris,  and  of  the  popu- 
lace which  was  under  the  dominion  of  the  clubs.*  Accordingly, 
on  the  20th  of  April,  she  writes  to  the  emperorf  that  "the  oc- 
currence which  has  just  taken  place  has  confirmed  them  more 
than  ever  in  their  plans.  The  very  guards  who  surrounded 
them  are  the  persons  who  threaten  them  most.  Their  very  lives 
are  not  safe ;  but  they  must  appear  to  submit  to  every  thing  till 
the  moment  comes  when  they  can  act;  and  in  the  mean  time 
their  captivity  proves  that  none  of  their  actions  are  done  by  their 
own  accord."  And  she  urges  her  brother  at  once  to  move  a 
strong  body  of  troops  toward  some  of  his  fortresses  on  the  Bel- 
gian frontier — Arlon,  Vitron,  or  Mons — in  order  to  give  M.  de 
Bouille  a  pretext  for  collecting  troops  and  munitions  of  war  at 
Montmedy.  "  Send  me  an  immediate  answer  on  this  point ;  let 

*  In  her  letter  to  Mercy  of  August  1 6th,  of  which  extracts  are  given  in  ch. 
xi.,  she  takes  credit  for  having  encountered  the  dangers  of  the  journey  to 
Montmedy  for  the  sake  of  "  the  public  welfare." 

\  Arneth,  p.  155. 

22 


338  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

me  know,  too,  about  the  money ;  our  position  is  frightful,  and 
we  must  absolutely  put  an  end  to  it  next  month.  The  king  de- 
sires it  even  more  than  I  do." 

As  May  proceeds  she  presses  on  her  preparations,  and  urges 
the  emperor  to  accelerate  his,  especially  the  movements  of  his 
troops ;  but  the  Count  d'Artois  and  his  followers  are  a  terrible 
addition  to  her  anxieties.  Leopold  had  told  her  that  the  ancient 
minister,  Calonne,  always  restless  and  always  unscrupulous,  was 
now  with  the  count,  and  was  busily  stirring  him  up  to  undertake 
some  enterprise  or  other;*  and  her  reply  shows  how  justly  she 
dreads  the  results  of  such  an  alliance.  "The  prince,  the  Count 
d'Artois,  and  all  those  whom  they  have  about  them,  seem  deter- 
mined to  be  doing  something.  They  have  no  proper  means  of 
action,  and  they  will  ruin  us,  without  our  having  the  slightest 
connection  with  their  plans.  Their  indiscretion,  and  the  men 
who  are  guiding  them,  will  prevent  our  communicating  our  secret 
to  them  till  the  very  last  moment." 

To  Mercy  she  is  even  more  explicit  in  her  description  of  the 
imminence  of  the  danger  to  which  the  king  and  she  are  now  ex- 
posed than  she  had  been  to  her  brother.  As  the  time  for  at- 
tempting to  escape  grew  nearer,  the  embassador  became  the  more 
painfully  impressed  with  the  danger  of  the  attempt.  Failure,  as 
it  seems  to  him,  will  be  absolutely  fatal.  He  asks  her  anxiously 
whether  the  necessity  is  such  that  it  has  become  indispensable  to 
risk  such  a  result  ;f  and  she,  in  an  answer  of  considerable  length 
and  admirable  clearness  of  expression  and  argument,  explains  her 
reasons  for  deciding  that  it  is  absolutely  unavoidable  :  "  The  only 
alternative  for  us,  especially  since  the  18th  of  April, J  is  either 
blindly  to  submit  to  all  that  the  factions  require,  or  to  perish  by 
the  sword  which  is  forever  suspended  over  our  heads.  Believe 
me,  I  am  not  exaggerating  the  danger ;  you  know  that  my  notion 
used  to  be,  as  long  as  I  could  cherish  it,  to  trust  to  gentleness,  to 
time,  and  to  public  opinion.  But  now  all  is  changed,  and  we 
must  either  perish  or  take  the  only  line  which  remains  to  us. 
We  are  far  from  shutting  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  this  line  also 

*  Letter  of  Leopold  to  Marie  Antoinette,  date  May  2d,  1791,  Arneth,  p.  162. 

f  "  Cette  demarche  est  le  terme  extreme  de  reussirou  perir.  Les  choses  en 
sont-elles  au  point  de  rendre  ce  risque  indispensable  ?" — Mercy  to  Marie  Antoi- 
nette, May  llth,  1791,  Arneth,  p.  163. 

\  The  day  on  which  the  king  and  she  had  been  prevented  from  going  to 
St.  Cloud. 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  ESCAPE.  339 

has  its  perils ;  but,  if  we  must  die,  it  will  be  at  least  with  glory, 
and  in  having  done  all  that  we  could  for  our  duty,  for  honor,  and 

for  religion I  believe  that  the  provinces  are  less  corrupted 

than  the  capital ;  but  it  is  always  Paris  which  gives  the  tone  to 
the  whole  kingdom.  We  should  greatly  deceive  ourselves  if  we 
fancied  that  the  events  of  the  18th  of  April,  horrible  as  they  were, 
produced  any  excitement  in  the  provinces.  The  clubs  and  the 
affiliations  lead  France  where  they  please ;  the  right-thinking  peo- 
ple, and  those  who  are  dissatisfied  with  what  is  taking  place,  ei- 
ther flee  from  the  country  or  hide  themselves,  because  they  are  not 
the  stronger  party,  and  because  they  have  no  rallying-point.  But 
when  the  king  can  show  himself  freely  in  a  fortified  place,  people 
will  be  astonished  to  see  the  number  of  dissatisfied  persons  who 
will  then  come  forward,  who,  till  that  time,  are  groaning  in  si- 
lence ;  but  the  longer  we  delay,  the  less  support  we  shall  have 

"  Let  us  resume.  You  ask  two  questions :  1st.  Is  it  possible 
or  useful  to  wait  ?  No ;  by  the  explanation  of  our  position  which 
I  gave  at  the  beginning  of  this  letter,  I  have  sufficiently  proved 
the  impossibility As  to  the  usefulness,  it  could  only  be  use- 
ful on  the  supposition  that  we  could  count  on  a  new  legislative 

body 2d.  Admitting  the  necessity  of  acting  promptly,  are  we 

sure  of  means  to  escape ;  of  a  place  to  retreat  to,  and  of  having  a 
party  strong  enough  to  maintain  itself  for  two  months  by  its  own 
resources  ?  I  have  answered  this  question  several  times.  It  is  more 
than  probable  that  the  king,  once  escaped  from  here,  and  in  a 
place  of  safety,  will  have,  and  will  very  soon  find,  a  very  strong 
party.  The  means  of  escape  depend  on  a  flight  the  most  imme- 
diate and  the  most  secret.  There  are  only  four  persons  who  are 
acquainted  with  our  secret;  and  those  whom  we  mean  to  take 
with  us  will  not  know  it  till  the  very  moment.  None  of  our  own 
people  will  attend  us ;  and  at  a  distance  of  only  thirty  or  thirty- 
five  leagues  we  shall  find  some  troops  to  protect  our  march,  but 
not  enough  to  cause  us  to  be  recognized  till  we  reach  the  place  of 
our  destination. 

" ....  I  can  easily  conceive  the  repugnance  which,  on  political 
grounds,  the  emperor  would  feel  to  allowing  his  troops  to  enter 
France But  if  their  movement  is  solicited  by  his  brother- 
in-law,  his  ally,  whose  life,  existence,  and  honor  are  in  danger,  I 
conceive  the  case  is  very  different ;  and  as  to  Brabant,  that  prov- 
ince will  never  be  quiet  till  this  country  is  brought  back  to  a  dif- 
ferent state.  It  is,  then,  for  himself  also  that  my  brother  will  be 


340  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

working  in  giving  us  this  assistance,  which  is  so  much  the  more 
valuable  to  us,  that  his  troops  will  serve  as  an  example  to  ours, 
and  will  even  be  able  to  restrain  them. 

"And  it  is  with  this  view  that  the  person*  of  whom  I  spoke 
to  you  in  my  letter  in  cipher  demands  their  employment  for  a 

time We  can  not  delay  longer  than  the  end  of  this  month. 

By  that  time  I  hope  we  shall  have  a  decisive  answer  from  Spain. 
But  till  the  very  instant  of  our  departure  we  must  do  every  thing 
that  is  required  of  us,  and  even  appear  to  go  to  meet  them.  It  is 
one  way,  perhaps  the  only  one,  to  lull  the  mob  to  sleep  and  to 
save  our  lives." 

*  The  king. 


THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  PREPARING  TO  ESCAPE.         341 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Plans  for  the  Escape  of  the  Royal  Family. — Dangers  of  Discovery. — Resolu- 
tion of  the  Queen. — The  Royal  Family  leave  the  Palace. — They  are  recog- 
nized at  Ste.  Menehould. — Are  arrested  at  Varennes. — Tumult  in  the  City, 
and  in  the  Assembly. — The  King  and  Queen  are  brought  back  to  Paris. 

MARIE  ANTOINETTE,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  anxious  that 
their  departure  from  Paris  should  not  be  delayed  beyond  the  end 
of  May,  and  De  Bouille  had  agreed  with  her ;  but  enterprises  of 
so  complicated  a  character  can  rarely  be  executed  with  the  rapid- 
ity or  punctuality  that  is  desired,  and  it  was  not  till  the  20th  of 
June  that  this  movement,  on  which  so  much  depended,  was  able 
to  be  put  in  execution.  Often  during  the  preceding  weeks  the 
queen's  heart  sunk  within  her  when  she  reflected  on  the  danger 
of  discovery,  whether  from  the  acuteness  of  her  enemies  or  the 
treachery  of  pretended  friends;  and  even  more  when  she  pon- 
dered on  the  character  of  the  king  himself,  so  singularly  unfitted 
for  an  undertaking  in  which  it  was  not  the  passive  courage  with 
which  he  was  amply  endowed,  but  daring  resolution,  promptitude, 
and  presence  of  mind,  which  were  requisite.  She  was  cheered, 
however,  by  repeated  letters  from  the  emperor,  showing  the  warm 
and  affectionate  interest  which  he  took  in  the  result  of  the  enter- 
prise, and  promising  with  evident  sincerity  "  his  own  most  cordial 
co-operation  in  all  that  could  tend  to  her  and  her  husband's  suc- 
cess, when  the  time  should  come  for  him  to  show  himself." 

But  her  main  reliance  was  on  herself ;  and  all  who  were  privy 
to  the  enterprise  knew  well  that  it  was  on  her  forethought  and 
courage  that  its  success  wholly  depended.  Those  who  were  privy 
to  it  were  very  few ;  and  it  is  a  singular  proof  how  few  French- 
men, even  of  the  highest  rank,  could  be  trusted  at  this  time,  that 
of  these  few  two  were  foreigners — a  Swede,  the  Count  de  Fersen, 
whose  name  has  been  mentioned  in  earlier  chapters  of  this  narra- 
tive, and  (an  English  writer  may  be  proud  to  add)  an  Englishman, 
Mr.  Craufurd.  In  such  undertakings  the  simplest  arrangements 
are  the  safest ;  and  those  devised  by  the  queen  and  her  advisers, 
the  chief  of  whom  were  De  Fersen  and  De  Bouill6,  were  as  sim- 


342  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

pie  as  possible.  The  royal  fugitives  were  to  pass  for  a  traveling 
party  of  foreigners.  A  passport  signed  by  M.  Montmorin,  who 
still  held  the  seals  of  the  Foreign  Department,  was  provided  for 
Madame  de  Tourzel,  who,  assuming  the  name  of  Madame  de  Korff, 
a  Russian  baroness,  professed  to  be  returning  to  her  own  country 
with  her  family  and  her  ordinary  equipage.  The  dauphin  and  his 
sister  were  described  as  her  children,  the  queen  as  their  governess ; 
while  the  king  himself,  under  the  name  of  Durand,  was  to  pass  as 
their  servant.  Three  of  the  old  disbanded  Body-guard,  MM.  De 
Valory,  De  Maiden,  and  De  Moustier,  were  to  attend  the  party  in 
the  disguise  of  couriers ;  and,  under  the  pretense  of  providing  for 
the  safe  conveyance  of  a  large  sum  of  money  which  was  required 
for  the  payment  of  the  troops,  De  Bouille  undertook  to  post  a 
detachment  of  soldiers  at  each  town  between  Chalons  and  Mont- 
medy,  through  which  the  travelers  were  to  pass. 

Some  of  the  other  arrangements  were  more  difficult,  as  more 
likely  to  lead  to  a  betrayal  of  the  design.  It  was,  of  course,  im- 
possible to  use  any  royal  carriage,  and  no  ordinary  vehicle  was 
large  enough  to  hold  such  a  party.  But  in  the  preceding  year 
De  Fersen  had  had  a  carriage  of  unusual  dimensions  built  for 
some  friends  in  the  South  of  Europe,  so  that  he  had  no  difficulty 
now  in  procuring  another  of  similar  pattern  from  the  same  maker ; 
and  Mr.  Craufurd  agreed  to  receive  it  into  his  stables,  and  at  the 
proper  hour  to  convey  it  outside  the  barrier. 

Yet  in  spite  of  the  care  displayed  in  these  arrangements,  and 
of  the  absolute  fidelity  observed  by  all  to  whom  the  secret  was  in- 
trusted, some  of  the  inferior  attendants  about  the  court  suspected 
what  was  in  agitation.  The  queen  herself,  with  some  degree  of 
imprudence,  sent  away  a  large  package  to  Brussels ;  one  of  her 
waiting-women  discovered  that  she  and  Madame  Campan  had 
spent  an  evening  in  packing  up  jewels,  and  sent  warning  to  Gou- 
vion,  an  aid -de -camp  of  La  Fayette,  and  to  Bailly,  the  mayor, 
that  the  queen  at  last  was  preparing  to  flee.  Luckily  Bailly  had 
received  so  many  similar  notices  that  he  paid  but  little  attention 
to  this ;  or  perhaps  he  was  already  beginning  to  feel  the  repent- 
ance, which  he  afterward  exhibited,  at  his  former  insolence  to  his 
sovereign,  and  was  not  unwilling  to  contribute  to  their  safety  by 
his  inaction ;  while  Gouvion  was  not  anxious  to  reveal  the  source 
from  which  he  had  obtained  his  intelligence.  Still,  though  noth- 
ing precise  was  known,  the  attention  of  more  than  one  person 
was  awakened  to  the  movements  of  the  royal  family,  and  especial- 


DIFFICULTIES  OF  THE  ENTERPRISE.  343 

ly  that  of  La  Fayette,  who,  alarmed  lest  his  prisoners  should  es- 
cape him,  redoubled  his  vigilance,  driving  down  to  the  palace 
every  night,  and  often  visiting  them  in  their  apartments  to  make 
•himself  certain  of  their  presence.  Six  hundred  of  the  National 
Guard  were  on  duty  at  the  Tuileries,  and  sentinels  were  placed  at 
the  end  of  every  passage  and  at  the  foot  of  every  staircase ;  but 
fortunately  a  small  room,  with  a  secret  door  which  led  into  the 
queen's  chamber,  as  it  had  been  for  some  time  unoccupied,  had 
escaped  the  observation  of  the  officers  on  guard,  and  that  passage 
therefore  offered  a  prospect  of  their  being  able  to  reach  the  court- 
yard without  being  perceived.* 

On  the  morning  of  the  day  appointed  for  the  great  enterprise, 
all  in  the  secret  were  vividly  excited  except  the  queen.  She  alone 
preserved  her  coolness.  No  one  could  have  guessed  from  her  de- 
meanor that  she  was  on  the  point  of  embarking  in  an  undertak- 
ing on  which,  in  her  belief,  her  own  life  and  the  lives  of  all  those 
dearest  to  her  depended.  The  children,  who  knew  nothing  of 
what  was  going  on,  went  to  their  usual  occupations — the  dauphin 
to  his  garden  on  the  terrace,  Madame  Royale  to  her  lessons ;  and 
Marie  Antoinette  herself,  after  giving  some  orders  which  were  to 
be  executed  in  the  course  of  the  next  day  or  two,  went  out  riding 
with  her  sister-in-law  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  Her  conversation 
throughout  the  day  was  light  and  cheerful.  She  jested  with  the 
officer  on  guard  about  the  reports  which  she  understood  to  be  in 
circulation  about  some  intended  flight  of  the  king,  and  was  re- 
lieved to  find  that  he  totally  disbelieved  them.  She  even  vent- 
ured on  the  same  jest  with  La  Fayette  himself,  who  replied,  in 
his  usual  surly  fashion,  that  such  a  project  was  constantly  talked 
of ;  but  even  his  rudeness  could  not  discompose  her. 

As  the  hour  drew  near  she  began  to  prepare  her  children.  The 
princess  was  old  enough  to  be  talked  to  reasonably,  and  she  con- 
tented herself,  therefore,  with  warning  her  to  show  no  surprise  at 
any  thing  that  she  might  see  or  hear.  The  dauphin  was  to  be 
disguised  as  a  girl,  and  it  was  with  great  glee  that  he  let  the  at- 
tendants dress  him,  saying  that  he  saw  that  they  were  going  to 
act  a  play.  The  royal  supper  usually  took  place  soon  after  nine ; 
at  half-past  ten  the  family  separated  for  the  night,  and  by  eleven 
their  attendants  were  all  dismissed;  and  Marie  Antoinette  had 
fixed  that  hour  for  departing,  because,  even  if  the  sentinels  should 

*  Chambrier,  ii.,  p.  86-88. 


344  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

get  a  glimpse  of  them,  they  would  be  apt  to  confound  them  with 
the  crowd  which  usually  quit  the  palace  at  that  time. 

Accordingly,  at  eleven  o'clock  the  Count  de  Fersen,  dressed  as 
a  coachman,  drove  an  ordinary  job-carriage  into  the  court-yard ; 
and  Marie  Antoinette,  who  trusted  nothing  to  others  which  she 
could  do  herself,  conducted  Madame  de  Tourzel  and  the  children 
down-stairs,  and  seated  them  safely  in  the  carriage.  But  even  her 
nerves  nearly  gave  way  when  La  Fayette's  coach,  brilliantly  light- 
ed, drove  by,  passing  close  to  her  as  he  proceeded  to  the  inner 
court  to  ascertain  from  the  guard  that  every  thing  was  in  its 
usual  condition.  In  an  agony  of  fright  she  sheltered  herself  be- 
hind some  pillars,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  marquis  drove  back, 
and  she  rejoined  the  king,  who  was  awaiting  her  summons  in  his 
own  apartment,  while  one  of  the  disguised  Body-guards  went  for 
the  Princess  Elizabeth.  Even  the  children  were  inspired  with 
their  mother's  courage.  As  the  princess  got  into  the  carriage  she 
trod  on  the  dauphin,  who  was  lying  in  concealment  at  the  bottom, 
and  the  brave  boy  spoke  not  a  word ;  while  Louis  himself  gave  a 
remarkable  proof  how,  in  spite  of  the  want  of  moral  and  political 
resolution  which  had  brought  such  miseries  on  himself  and  his 
country,  he  could  yet  preserve  in  the  most  critical  moments  his 
presence  of  mind  and  kind  consideration  for  others.  He  was  half 
way  down-stairs  when  he  returned  to  his  room.  M.  Valory,  who 
was  escorting  him,  was  dismayed  when  he  saw  him  turn  back, 
and  ventured  to  remind  him  how  precious  was  every  instant.  "  I 
know  that,"  replied  the  kind-hearted  monarch ;  "  but  they  will 
murder  my  servant  to-morrow  for  having  aided  my  escape ;"  and, 
sitting  down  at  his  table,  he  wrote  a  few  lines  declaring  that  the 
man  had  acted  under  his  peremptory  orders,  and  gave  the  note  to 
him  as  a  certificate  to  protect  him  from  accusation.  When  all 
the  rest  were  seated,  the  queen  took  her  place.  De  Fersen  drove 
them  to  the  Porte  St.  Martin,  where  the  great  travel  ing -carriage 
was  waiting,  and,  having  transferred  them  to  it,  and  taken  a  re- 
spectful leave  of  them,  he  fled  at  once  to  Brussels,  which,  more 
fortunate  than  those  for  whom  he  had  risked  his  life,  he  reached 
in  safety. 

For  a  hundred  miles  th,e  royal  fugitives  proceeded  rapidly  and 
without  interruption.  One  of  the  supposed  couriers  was  on  the 
box,  another  rode  by  the  side  of  the  carriage,  and  the  third  went 
on  in  advance  to  see  that  the  relays  were  in  readiness.  Before 
midday  they  reached  Chalons,  the  place  where  they  were  to  be 


THE  KINO  IS  RECOGNIZED.  345 

met  by  the  first  detachment  of  De  Bouille's  troops;  and,  when 
the  well-known  uniforms  met  her  eye,  Marie  Antoinette  for  the 
first  time  gave  full  expression  to  her  feelings.  "  Thank  God,  we 
are  saved !"  she  exclaimed,  clasping  her  hands ;  the  fervor  of  her 
exclamation  bearing  undesigned  testimony  to  the  greatness  of  the 
fears  which,  out  of  consideration  for  others,  she  had  hitherto 
kept  to  herself ;  but  in  truth  out  of  this  employment  of  the  troops 
arose  all  their  subsequent  disasters. 

De  Bouille  had  been  unwilling  to  send  his  detachments  so  far 
forward,  pointing  out  that  the  notice  which  their  arrival  in  the 
different  towns  was  sure  to  attract  would  do  more  harm  than 
their  presence  as  a  protection  could  do  good.  But  his  argument 
had  been  overruled  by  the  king  himself,  who  apprehended  the 
greatest  danger  from  the  chance  of  being  overtaken,  and  expected 
it,  therefore,  to  increase  with  every  hour  of  the  journey.  De 
Bouille's  fears,  however,  were  found  to  be  the  best  justified  by 
the  event.  In  more  than  one  town,  even  in  the  few  hours  that 
had  elapsed  since  the  arrival  of  the  soldiers,  there  had  been  quar- 
rels between  them  and  the  to wns- people ;  in  others,  which  was 
still  worse,  the  populace  had  made  friends  with  them  and  seduced 
them  from  their  loyalty,  so  that  the  officers  in  command  had 
found  it  necessary  to  withdraw  them  altogether;  and  anxiety  at 
their  unexpected  absence  caused  Louis  more  than  once  to  show 
himself  at  the  carriage  window.  More  than  once  he  was  recog- 
nized by  people  who  knew  him  and  kept  his  counsel ;  but  Drouet, 
the  postmaster  at  Ste.  Menehould,  a  town  about  one  hundred  and 
seventy  miles  from  Paris,  was  of  a  less  loyal  disposition.  He 
had  lately  been  in  the  capital,  where  he  had  become  infected  with 
the  Jacobin  doctrines.  He  too  saw  the  king's  face,  and  on  com- 
paring his  somewhat  striking  features  with  the  stamp  on  some 
public  documents  which  he  chanced  to  have  in  his  pocket,  be- 
came convinced  of  his  identity.  He  at  once  reported  to  the  mag- 
istrates what  he  had  seen,  and  with  their  sanction  rode  forward 
to  the  next  town,  Clermont,  hoping  to  be  able  to  collect  a  force 
sufficient  to  stop  the  royal  carriage  on  its  arrival  there.  But  the 
king  traveled  so  fast  that  he  had  quit  Clermont  before  Drouet 
reached  it,  and  he  even  arrived  at  Varennes  before  his  pursuer. 
Had  he  quit  that  place  also  he  would  have  been  in  safety,  for 
just  beyond  it  De  Bouille  had  posted  a  strong  division  which 
would  have  been  able  to  defy  all  resistance.  But  Varennes,  a 
town  on  the  Oise,  was  so  small  as  to  have  no  post-house,  and  by 


346  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

some  mismanagement  the  royal  party  had  not  been  informed  at 
which  end  of  the  town  they  were-  to  find  the  relay.  The  carriage 
halted  while  M.  Valory  was  making  the  necessary  inquiries ;  and 
while  it  was  standing  still,  Drouet  rode  up  and  forbade  the  pos- 
tilions to  proceed.  He  himself  hastened  on  through  the  town, 
collected  a  few  of  the  towns-people,  and  with  their  aid  upset  a 
cart  or  two  on  the  bridge  to  block  up  the  way ;  and,  having  thus 
made  the  road  impassable,  he  roused  the  municipal  authorities, 
for  it  was  nearly  midnight,  and  then,  returning  to  the  royal  car- 
riage, he  compelled  the  royal  family  to  dismount  and  follow  him 
to  the  house  of  the  mayor,  a  petty  grocer,  whose  name  was 
Strausse.  The  magistrates  sounded  the  tocsin :  the  National 
Guard  beat  to  arms :  the  king  and  queen  were  prisoners. 

How  they  were  allowed  to  remain  so  is  still,  after  all  the  ex- 
planations that  have  been  given,  incomprehensible.  Two  officers 
with  sixty  hussars,  all  well  disposed  and  loyal,  were  in  a  side 
street  of  the  town  waiting  for  their  arrival,  of  which  they  were 
not  aware.  Six  of  the  troopers  actually  passed  the  travelers  in 
the  street  as  they  were  proceeding  to  the  mayor's  house,  but  no 
one,  not  even  the  queen,  appealed  to  them  for  succor ;  or  they 
could  have  released  them  without  an  effort,  for  Drouet's  whole 
party  consisted  of  no  more  than  eight  unarmed  men.  And  when, 
an  hour  afterward,  the  officers  in  command  learned  that  the  king 
was  in  the  town  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies,  instead  of  at  once 
delivering  him,  they  were  seized  with  a  panic :  they  would  not 
take  on  themselves  the  responsibility  of  acting  without  express 
orders,  but  galloped  back  to  De  Bouille  to  report  the  state  of  af- 
fairs. In  less  than  an  hour  three  more  detachments,  amounting 
in  all  to  above  one  hundred  men,  also  reached  the  town ;  and 
their  commanders  did  make  their  way  to  the  king,  and  asked  his 
orders.  He  could  only  reply  that  he  was  a  prisoner,  and  had  no 
orders  to  give ;  and  not  one  of  the  officers  had  the  sense  to  per- 
ceive that  the  fact  of  his  announcing  himself  a  prisoner  was  in 
itself  an  order  to  deliver  him. 

One  word  of  command  from  Louis  to  clear  the  way  for  him  at 
the  sword's  point  would  yet  have  been  sufficient;  but  he  had 
still  the  same  invincible  repugnance  as  ever  to  allow  blood  to  be 
shed  in  his  quarrel.  He  preferred  peaceful  means,  which  could 
not  but  fail.  With  a  dignity  arising  from  his  entire  personal 
fearlessness,  he  announced  his  name  and  rank,  his  reasons  for 
quitting  Paris  and  proceeding  to  Montmedy;  declaring  that  he 


EXCITEMENT  IN  PARIS.  347 

had  no  thought  of  quitting  the  kingdom,  and  demanded  to  be 
allowed  to  proceed  on  his  journey.  While  the  queen,  her  fears 
for  her  children  overpowering  all  other  feelings,  addressed  herself 
•with  the  most  earnest  entreaties  to  the  mayor's  wife,  declaring 
that  their  very  lives  would  be  in  danger  if  they  should  be  taken 
back  to  Paris,  and  imploring  her  to  use  her  influence  with  her 
husband  to  allow  them  to  proceed.  Neither  Strausse  nor  his  wife 
was  ill-disposed  toward  the  king,  but  had  not  the  courage  to 
comply  with  the  request  of  the  royal  couple  whom,  after  a  little 
time,  the  mayor  and  his  wife  could  not  have  allowed  to  proceed, 
however  much  they  might  have  wished  it;  for  the  tocsin  had 
brought  up  numbers  of  the  National  Guard,  who  were  all  dis- 
loyal ;  while  some  of  the  soldiers  began  to  show  a  disinclination 
to  act  against  them.  And  so  matters  stood  for  some  hours ;  a 
crowd  of  towns-people,  peasants,  National  Guards,  and  dragoons 
thronging  the  room ;  the  king  at  times  speaking  quietly  to  his 
captors ;  the  queen  weeping,  for  the  fatigue  of  the  journey,  and 
the  fearful  disappointment  at  being  thus  baffled  at  the  last  mo- 
ment, after  she  had  thought  that  all  danger  was  passed,  had 
broken  down  even  her  nerves.  At  first  she  had  tried  to  per- 
suade Louis  to  act  with  resolution ;  but  when,  as  usual,  she  failed, 
she  gave  way  to  despair,  and  sat  silent,  with  touching,  helpless 
sorrow,  gazing  on  her  children,  who  had  fallen  asleep. 

At  seven  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  22d  a  single  horseman 
rode  into  the  town.  He  was  an  aid-de-camp  of  La  Fayette.  On 
the  morning  of  the  21st  the  excitement  had  been  great  in  Paris 
when  it  became  known  that  the  king  had  fled.  The  mob  rose  in 
furious  tumult.  They  forced  their  way  into  the  Tuileries,  plun- 
dering the  palace  and  destroying  the  furniture.  A  fruit-woman 
took  possession  of  the  queen's  bed,  as  a  stall  to  range  her  cher- 
ries on,  saying  that  to-day  it  was  the  turn  of  the  nation ;  and  a 
picture  of  the  king  was  torn  down  from  the  walls,  and,  after  be- 
ing stuck  up  in  derision  outside  the  gates  for  some  time,  was 
offered  for  sale  to  the  highest  bidder.*  In  the  Assembly  the 
most  violent  language  was  used.  An  officer  whose  name  has 
been  preserved  through  the  eminence  which  after  his  death  was 
attained  by  his  widow  and  his  children,  General  Beauharnais,  was 
the  president ;  and  as  such,  he  announced  that  M.  Bailly  had  re- 
ported to  him  that  the  enemies  of  the  nation  had  carried  off  the 

*  Lamartine's  "  Histoire  des  Girondins,"  ii.,  p.  15. 


348  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

king.  The  whole  Assembly  was  roused  to  fury  at  the  idea  of 
his  having  escaped  from  their  power.  A  decree  was  at  once 
drawn  up  in  form,  commanding  that  Louis  should  be  seized 
wherever  he  could  be  found,  and  brought  back  to  Paris.  No  one 
could  pretend  that  the  Assembly  had  the  slightest  right  to  issue 
such  an  order ;  but  La  Fayette,  with  the  alacrity  which  he  always 
displayed  when  any  insult  was  to  be  offered  to  the  king  or  queen, 
at  once  sent  it  off  by  his  own  aid-de-camp,  M.  Roineuf,  with  in- 
structions to  see  that  it  was  carried  out.  The  order  was  now 
delivered  to  Strausse ;  the  king,  with  scarcely  an  attempt  at  re- 
sistance, declared  his  willingness  to  obey  it;  and  before  eight 
o'clock  he  and  his  family,  with  their  faithful  Body-guard,  now  in 
undisguised  captivity,  were  traveling  back  to  Paris. 

When  was  there  ever  a  journey  so  miserable  as  that  which 
now  brought  its  sovereigns  back  to  that  disloyal  and  hostile  city ! 
The  National  Guard  of  Verennes,  and  of  other  towns  through 
which  they  passed,  claimed  a  right  to  accompany  them ;  and  as 
they  were  all  infantry,  the  speed  of  the  carriage  was  limited  to 
their  walking  pace.  So  slowly  did  the  procession  advance,  that 
it  was  not  till  the  fourth  day  that  it  reached  the  barrier ;  and,  in 
many  places  on  the  road,  a  mob  had  collected  in  expectation  of 
their  arrival,  and  aggravated  the  misery  of  their  situation  by  fero- 
cious threats  addressed  to  the  queen,  and  even  to  the  little  dau- 
phin. But  at  Chalons  they  were  received  with  respect  by  the 
municipal  authorities ;  the  H6tel  de  Ville  had  been  prepared  for 
their  reception :  a  supper  had  been  provided.  The  queen  was 
even  entreated  to  allow  some  of  the  principal  ladies  of  the  city  to 
be  presented  to  her;  and,  as  the  next  day  was  the  great  Roman 
Catholic  festival  of  the  Fete  Dieu,  they  were  escorted  with  all 
honor  to  hear  mass  in  the  cathedral,  before  they  resumed  their 
journey.  Even  the  National  Guard  were  not  all  hostile  or  inso- 
lent. At  Epernay,  though  a  menacing  crowd  surrounded  the  car- 
riage as  they  dismounted,  the  commanding  officer  took  up  the 
dauphin  in  his  arms  to  carry  him  in  safety  to  the  door  of  the  ho- 
tel ;  comforting  the  queen  at  the  same  time  with  a  loyal  whisper 
well  suited  to  her  feelings,  "  Despise  this  clamor,  madame ;  there 
is  a  God  above  all." 

But,  miserable  as  their  journey  was,  soon  after  leaving  Chalons 
it  became  more  wretched  still.  They  were  no  longer  to  be  al- 
lowed the  privilege  of  suffering  and  grieving  by  themselves.  The 
Assembly  had  sent  three  of  its  members  to  take  charge  of  them, 


CONDUCT  OF  BARNAVE  AND  P&TION.  349 

selecting,  as  might  have  been  expected,  two  who  were  known  as 
among  their  bitterest  enemies — Barnave,  and  a  man  named  Pe- 
tion ;  the  third,  M.  Latour  Maubourg,  was  a  plain  soldier,  who 
might  be  depended  on  for  carrying  out  his  orders  with  resolu- 
tion. In  one  respect  those  who  made  the  choice  were  disap- 
pointed. Barnave,  whose  hostility  to  the  king  and  queen  had 
been  chiefly  dictated  by  personal  feelings,  was  entirely  convert- 
ed by  the  dignified  resignation  of  the  queen,  and  from  this  day 
renounced  his  republicanism;  and,  though  he  adhered  to  what 
were  known  as  Constitutionalist  views,  was  ever  afterward  a  zeal- 
ous advocate  of  both  the  monarch  and  the  monarchy.  But  Pe- 
tion  took  every  opportunity  of  insulting  Louis,  haranguing  him 
on  the  future  abolition  of  royalty,  and  reproaching  him  for  many 
of  his  actions,  and  for  what  he  believed  to  be  his  feelings  and 
views  for  the  future. 

It  was  the  afternoon  of  the  25th  when  they  came  in  sight  of 
Paris.  So  great  had  been  Marie  Antoinette's  mental  sufferings 
that  in  those  few  days  her  hair  had  turned  white ;  and  fresh  and 
studied  humiliations  were  yet  in  store  for  her.  The  carriage  was 
not  allowed  to  take  the  shortest  road,  but  was  conducted  some 
miles  round,  that  it  might  be  led  in  triumph  down  the  Champs 
Elysees,  where  a  vast  mob  was  waiting  to  feast  their  eyes  on  the 
spectacle,  whose  display  of  sullen  ill-will  had  been  bespoken  by  a 
notice  prohibiting  any  one  from  taking  off  his  hat  to  the  king,  or 
uttering  a  cheer.  The  National  Guard  were  forbidden  to  present 
arms  to  him ;  and  it  seemed  as  if  they  interpreted  this  order  as  a 
prohibition  also  against  using  them  in  his  defense;  for,  as  the 
carriage  approached  the  palace,  a  gang  of  desperate  ruffians,  some 
of  whom  were  recognized  as  among  the  most  ferocious  of  the  for- 
mer assailants  of  Versailles,  forced  their  way  through  their  ranks, 
pressed  up  against  the  carriage,  and  even  mounted  on  the  steps. 
Barnave  and  Latour  Maubourg,  fearing  that  they  intended  to 
break  open  the  doors,  placed  themselves  against  them ;  but  they 
contented  themselve*s  with  looking  in  at  the  window,  and  uttering 
sanguinary  threats.  Marie  Antoinette  became  alarmed — not  for 
herself,  but  for  her  children.  They  had  so  closed  up  every  ave- 
nue of  air  that  those  within  were  nearly  stifled,  and  the  youngest, 
of  course,  suffered  most.  She  let  down  a  glass,  and  appealed  to 
those  who  were  crowding  round :  "  For  the  love  of  God,"  she  ex- 
claimed, "retire;  my  children  are  choking!"  "We  will  soon 
choke  you,"  was  the  only  reply  they  vouchsafed  to  her.  At  last, 


350  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

however,  La  Fayette  came  up  with  an  armed  escort,  and  they  were 
driven  off;  but  they  still  followed  the  carriage  up  to  the  very 
gate  of  the  palace  with  yells  of  insult.  And  it  had  a  stranger 
follower  still :  behind  the  royal  carriage  came  an  open  cabriolet, 
in  which  sat  Drouot,  with  a  laurel  crown  on  his  head,*  as  if  the 
chief  object  of  the  procession  were  to  celebrate  his  triumph  over 
his  king. 

The  mob  was  even  hoping  to  add  to  its  impressiveness  by  the 
slaughter  of  some  immediate  victims — not  of  the  king  and  queen, 
for  they  believed  them  to  be  destined  to  public  execution ;  but 
they  were  eager  to  massacre  the  faithful  Body-guards,  who  had 
been  brought  back,  bound,  on  the  box  of  the  carriage ;  and  they 
would  undoubtedly  have  carried  out  their  bloody  purpose  had 
not  the  queen  remembered  them,  and,  as  she  was  dismounting, 
entreated  Barnave  and  La  Fayette  to  protect  them.  Though 
during  the  last  three  days  many  things  had  had  their  names  al- 
tered,! ^e  Tuileries  had  been  spared.  It  was  still  in  name  a 
royal  palace,  but  those  who  now  entered  it  knew  it  for  their  pris- 
on. The  sun  was  setting,  the  emblem  of  the  extinction  of  their 
royalty,  as  they  ascended  the  stairs  to  find  such  rest  as  they  might, 
and  to  ponder  in  privacy  for  this  one  night  over  their  fatal  disap- 
pointment, and  their  still  more  fatal  future. 

Yet,  though  their  return  was  full  of  ignominy  and  wretched- 
ness, though  their  home  had  become  a  prison,  the  only  exit  from 
which  was  to  be  the  scaffold,  still,  if  posthumous  renown  can 
compensate  for  miseries  endured  in  this  life ;  if  it  be  worth  while 
to  purchase,  even  by  the  most  terrible  and  protracted  sufferings, 
an  undying,  unfading  memory  of  the  most  admirable  virtues — of 
fidelity,  of  truth,  of  patience,  of  resignation,  of  disinterestedness, 
of  fortitude,  of  all  the  qualities  which  most  ennoble  and  sanctify 
the  heart — it  may  be  said,  now  that  her  agonies  have  long  been 
terminated,  and  that  she  has  been  long  at  rest,  that  it  was  well  for 
Marie  Antoinette  that  she  had  failed  to  reach  Montmedy,  and  that 
she  had  thus  fallen  again,  without  having  to  reproach  herself  in 
any  single  particular,  into  the  hands  of  her  enemies.  As  a  pris- 
oner to  the  basest  of  mankind,  as  victim  to  the  most  ferocious 

*  Moore's  "  View,"  ii.,  p.  367. 

f  The  Palais  Royal  had  been  named  the  Palais  National.  All  signs  with 
the  portraits  of  the  king  or  queen,  all  emblems  of  royalty,  had  been  torn 
down.  A  shop-keeper  was  even  obliged  to  erase  his  name  from  his  shop 
door  because  it  was  Louis. — MOORE'S  View,  etc.,  ii.,  p.  356. 


SUBSEQUENT  TRIALS  OF  THE  QUEEN.  351 

monsters  that  have  ever  disgraced  humanity,  she  has  ever  com- 
manded, and  she  will  never  cease  to  command,  the  sympathy  and 
admiration  of  every  generous  mind.  But  the  case  would  have 
been  widely  different  had  Louis  and  she  found  the  refuge  which 
they  sought  with  the  loyal  and  brave  De  Bouille.  Their  arrival 
in  his  camp  could  not  have  failed  to  be  a  signal  for  civil  war ; 
and  civil  war,  under  such  circumstances  as  those  of  France  at  that 
time,  could  have  had  but  one  termination — their  defeat,  dethrone- 
ment, and  expulsion  from  the  country.  In  a  foreign  land  they 
might,  indeed,  have  found  security,  but  they  would  have  enjoyed 
but  little  happiness.  Wherever  he  may  be,  the  life  of  a  deposed 
and  exiled  sovereign  must  be  one  of  ceaseless  mortification.  The 
greatest  of  the  Italian  poets  has  well  said  that  the  recollection  of 
former  happiness  is  the  bitterest  aggravation  of  present  misery; 
and  not  only  to  the  fugitive  monarch  himself,  but  to  those  who 
still  preserve  their  fidelity  to  him,  and  to  the  foreign  people  to 
whom  he  is  indebted  for  his  asylum,  the  recollection  of  his  former 
greatness  will  ever  be  at  hand  to  add  still  further  bitterness  to  his 
present  humiliation.  The  most  friendly  feeling  his  misfortunes 
can  ever  excite  is  a  contemptuous  pity,  such  as  noble  and  proud 
minds  must  find  it  harder  to  endure  than  the  utmost  virulence  of 
hatred  and  enmity. 

From  such  a  fate,  at  least,  Marie  Antoinette  was  saved.  During 
the  remainder  of  her  life  her  failure  did  indeed  condemn  her  to  a 
protraction  of  trial  and  agony  such  as  no  other  woman  has  ever 
endured ;  but  she  always  prized  honor  far  above  life,  and  it  also 
opened  to  her  an  immortality  of  glory  such  as  no  other  woman 
has  ever  achieved. 


352  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

Marie  Antoinette's  Feelings  on  her  Return.  —  She  sees  Hopes  of  Improve- 
ment.— The  1 7th  of  July. — The  Assembly  inquire  into  the  King's  Conduct 
on  leaving  Paris. —  They  resolve  that  there  is  no  Reason  for  taking  Pro^ 
ceedings. —  Excitement  in  Foreign  Countries. — The  Assembly  proceeds  to 
complete  the  Constitution. — It  declares  all  the  Members  Incapable  of  Elec- 
tion to  the  New  Assembly. —  Letters  of  Marie  Antoinette  to  the  Emperor 
and  to  Mercy. —  The  Declaration  of  Pilnitz. —  The  King  accepts  the  Con- 
stitution.— Insults  offered  to  him  at  the  Festival  of  the  Champ  de  Mars. — 
And  to  the  Queen  at  the  Theatre. — The  First  or  Constituent  Assembly  is 
dissolved. 

IT  was  eminently  characteristic  of  Marie  Antoinette  that  her 
very  first  act,  the  morning  after  her  return,  was  to  write  to  De 
Fersen,  to  inform  him  that  she  was  safe  and  well  in  health ;  but 
though  she  had  roused  herself  for  that  effort  of  gratitude  and 
courteous  kindness,  for  some  days  she  seemed  stupefied  by  grief 
and  disappointment,  and  unable  to  speak  or  think  for  a  single 
moment  of  any  thing  but  the  narrow  chance  which  had  crushed 
her  hopes,  and  changed  success,  when  it  had  seemed  to  be  se- 
cured, into  ruin ;  and,  if  ever  she  could  for  a  moment  drive  the 
feeling  from  her  mind,  her  enemies  took  care  to  force  it  back 
upon  her  every  hour.  Before  they  reached  the  Tuileries,  La  Fay- 
ette  had  obtained  from  the  Assembly  authority  to  place  guards 
wherever  he  might  think  fit ;  and  no  jailer  ever  took  more  rigor- 
ous precautions  for  the  safe-keeping  of  the  most  desperate  crimi- 
nals than  this  man  of  noble  birth,  but  most  ignoble  heart,*  now 

*  A  certain  set  of  writers  in  this  country  at  one  time  made  La  Fayette  a 
subject  for  almost  unmixed  eulogy,  with  such  earnestness  that  it  may  be 
worth  while  to  reproduce  the  opinion  expressed  of  him  by  the  greatest  of  his 
contemporaries — a  man  as  acute  in  his  penetration  into  character  as  he  was 
stainless  in  honor  —  the  late  Duke  of  Wellington.  In  the  summer  of  1816, 
he  told  Sir  John  Malcolm  that  "he  had  used  La  Fayette  like  a  dog,  as  he 
merited.  The  old  rascal,"  said  he,  "  had  made  a  false  report  of  his  mission 
to  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  and  I  possessed  complete  evidence  of  his  having 
done  so.  I  told  him,  the  moment  he  entered,  of  this  fact ;  I  did  not  even 
state  it  in  the  most  delicate  manner.  I  told  him  he  must  be  sensible  he  had 
made  a  false  report.  He  made  no  answer."  And  the  duke  bowed  him  out 
of  the  room  with  unconcealed  scorn.  —  KATE'S  Life  of  Sir  J.  Malcolm,  ii., 
p.  109. 


AMROGANCE  OF  LA  FATETTE.  353 

practiced  toward  his  king  and  queen.  Sentinels  were  placed 
along  every  passage  of  the  palace,  and,  that  they  might  have  their 
prisoners  constantly  in  sight,  the  door  of  every  room  was  kept 
open  day  and  night.  The  queen  was  not  allowed  even  to  close 
her  bed-chamber,  and  a  soldier  was  placed  so  as  at  all  times  to 
command  a  sight  of  the  whole  room ;  the  only  moment  that  the 
door  was  permitted  to  be  shut  being  a  short  period  each  morning 
while  she  was  dressing. 

But  after  a  time  she  rallied,  and  even  began  again  to  think  the 
future  not  wholly  desperate.  She  always  looked  at  the  most 
promising  side  of  affairs,  and  the  first  shock  of  the  anguish  felt 
at  Varennes  had  scarcely  passed  away,  when,  with  irrepressible 
sanguineness,  she  began  to  look  around  her  and  search  for  some 
foundation  on  which  to  build  fresh  hopes.  She  even  thought 
that  she  had  found  it  in  the  divisions  which  were  becoming  daily 
more  conspicuous  in  the  Assembly  itself.  She  had  yet  to  learn 
that  at  such  times  violence  always  overpowers  moderation,  and 
that  the  worse  men  are,  the  more  certain  are  they  to  obtain  the 
upper  hand. 

The  divisions  among  her  enemies  were  indeed  so  furious  as  to 
justify  at  one  time  the  expectation  that  one  party  would  destroy 
the  other.  The  Jacobins  summoned  a  vast  meeting,  whose  mem- 
bers they  fixed  beforehand  at  a  hundred  thousand  citizens,  to 
meet  on  Sunday,  the  17th  of  July,  to  petition  the  Assembly  to 
dethrone  the  king.  On  the  appointed  day,  long  before  the  hour 
fixed  for  the  meeting,  a  fierce  riot  took  place,  the  causes  and  even 
the  circumstances  of  which  have  never  been  clearly  ascertained, 
but  which  soon  became  marked  with  scenes  of  extraordinary  vio- 
lence. La  Fayette,  who  tried  to  crush  it  in  the  bud,  was  pelted 
and  fired  at.  Bailly  hung  out  the  red  flag,  the  token  of  martial 
law  being  proclaimed,  at  the  H6tel  de  Ville.  The  mob  pelted 
the  National  Guard.  The  National  Guard,  too  much  exasperated 
and  alarmed  to  obey  La  Fayette's  order  to  fire  over  the  people's 
heads,  at  one  volley  shot  down  a  hundred  of  the  rioters.  The 
Jacobin  leaders  fled  in  alarm.  Robespierre,  who  had  been  one  of 
the  chief  organizers  of  the  tumult,  being  also  one  of  the  basest  of 
cowards,  was  the  most  terrified  of  all,  and  fled  for  shelter  to  his 
admirer,  of  congenial  spirit,  Madame  Roland,  whose  protection  he 
afterward  repaid  by  sending  her  to  the  scaffold.  The  riot  was 
quelled,  and  the  officers  of  the  National  Guard  urged  La  Fayette 
to  take  advantage  of  the  opportunity,  and  lead  them  on  to  close 

23 


354  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

by  force  the  club  of  the  Jacobins,  and  another  of  equal  ferocity, 
known  as  the  Cordeliers,*  lately  founded  by  the  fiercest  of  the 
Jacobins,  Danton,  and  a  butcher  named  Legendre,  who  boasted  of 
his  ferocity  as  his  only  title  to  interfere  in  the  Government.  If 
he  had  been  honest  in  his  professions  of  a  desire  to  save  the  mon- 
archy, La  Fayette  would  have  adopted  their  advice,  for  it  had  al- 
ready become  plain  to  every  one  that  the  existence  of  these  clubs, 
was  incompatible  with  the  preservation  of  the  kingly  authority; 
but  his  imbecile  love  of  popularity  made  him  fear  to  offend  even 
such  a  body  of  miscreants  as  the  followers  of  Danton  and  Robes- 
pierre, and  he  professed  to  believe  that  he  had  given  them  a  suffi- 
cient lesson,  and  had  so  convinced  them  of  his  power  to  crush 
them  that  they  would  be  grateful  to  him  for  sparing  them,  and 
learn  to  act  with  more  moderation  in  future. 

The  decision  of  the  Assembly  also  on  the  question  of  the 
king's  conduct  in  leaving  Paris  was  not  without  its  encourage- 
ment to  one  of  the  queen's  disposition.  She  herself  had  been 
interrogated  by  commissioners  appointed  by  the  Assembly  to  in- 
quire into  the  circumstances  connected  with  the  transaction,  and 
her  statement  has  been  preserved.  With  her  habitual  anxiety  to 
conceal  from  others  the  king's  incapacity  and  want  of  resolution, 
she  represented  herself  as  acting  wholly  under  his  orders.  "  I  de- 
clare," said  she,  "  that  as  the  king  desired  to  quit  Paris  with  his 
children,  it  would  have  been  unnatural  for  me  to  allow  any  thing 
to  prevent  me  from  accompanying  him.  During  the  last  two 
years,  I  have  sufficiently  proved,  on  several  occasions,  that  I  should 
never  leave  him ;  and  what  in  this  instance  determined  me  most 
was  the  assurance  which  I  felt  that  he  would  never  wish  to  quit 
the  kingdom.  If  he  had  had  such  a  desire,  all  my  influence 
would  have  been  exerted  to  dissuade  him  from  such  a  purpose."f 
And  she  proceeded  further  to  exculpate  all  their  attendants.  She 
declared  that  Madame  de  Tourzel,  who  had  been  ill  for  some 
weeks,  had  never  received  her  orders  till  the  very  day  of  the  de- 
parture. She  knew  not  whither  she  was  going,  and  had  taken  no 
luggage,  so  that  the  queen  herself  had  been  forced  to  lend  her 
some  clothes.  The  three  Body-guards  were  equally  ignorant,  and 
the  waiting-women.  Though  it  was  true,  she  said,  that  the  Count 

*  Lamartine  calls  the  Cordeliers  the  Club  of  Coups-de-main,  as  he  calls  the 
Jacobins  the  Club  of  Radical  Theories. — Histoire  des  Girondins,  xvi.,  p.  4. 
f  Dr.  Moore,  ii.,  p.  372  ;  Chambrier,  ii.,  p.  142. 


OPINION  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS.  355 

and  Countess  de  Provence  had  gone  to  Flanders,  they  had  only 
taken  that  course  to  avoid  interfering  with  the  relays  which  were 
required  by  the  king,  and  had  intended  to  rejoin  him  at  Montm6- 
dy.  The  king's  own  statement  tallied  with  hers  in  every  respect, 
though  it  was  naturally  more  explicit  as  to  his  motives  and  inten- 
tions; and  his  innocence  of  purpose  was  so  irresistibly  demon- 
strated, that,  though  Robespierre,  in  the  most  sanguinary  speech 
which  he  had  ever  yet  uttered,  demanded  that  he  should  be 
brought  to  trial,  not  concealing  his  desire  that  it  should  end  in 
his  condemnation ;  and  though  Petion,  and  a  wretch  named  Bu- 
zot,  a  warm  admirer  and  intimate  friend  of  Madame  Roland,  de- 
manded his  deposition  and  the  proclamation  of  a  republic,  Bar- 
nave  had  no  difficulty  in  carrying  the  Assembly  with  him  in  op- 
position to  their  violence;  and  it  was  finally  resolved  that  noth- 
ing which  had  happened  furnished  grounds  for  taking  proceed- 
ings against  any  member  of  the  royal  family.  It  was  ordered  at 
the  same  time  that  De  Bouille  should  be  arrested  and  impeached ; 
but  when  he  found  that  nothing  could  be  effected  for  the  deliv- 
erance of  the  king,  he  had  fled  across  the  frontiers,  and  was  safe 
from  their  malice. 

Meanwhile,  the  unconstitutional  and  unprecedented  violence 
which  had  been  offered  to  the  king  naturally  created  the  greatest 
excitement  and  indignation  in  all  foreign  countries.  A  month 
before  the  late  expedition,  the  emperor  had  addressed  a  formal 
note  to  M.  Montmorin,  as  Secretary  of  State,  declaring  that  he 
would  regard  any  ill-treatment  of  his  sister  as  an  injury  done  to 
himself  ;*  and  nowf  the  chivalrous  Gustavus  of  Sweden  proposed 
to  address  to  the  Assembly  a  joint  letter  of  warning  from  all  the 
sovereigns  of  Europe,  to  declare  that  they  would  all  make  com- 
mon cause  with  the  King  of  France  if  any  attempt  were  made  to 
offer  him  further  violence.  But  even  the  Austrian  ministers  re- 
garded such  a  declaration  as  more  likely  to  aggravate  than  to 
diminish  the  dangers  of  those  whom  it  was  designed  to  serve ; 
and  the  queen  herself  preferred  waiting  for  a  time,  to  see  the  re- 
sult of  the  strife  between  the  rival  parties  in  the  Assembly. 

The  Assembly  was  at  this  time  fully  occupied  with  the  comple- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  a  work  for  which  it  had  but  little  time 
left,  since  its  own  duration  had  been  fixed  at  two  years,  which 

*  Mercy  to  Marie  Antoinette,  May  16th,  Feuillet  de  Conches,  ii.,  p.  60. 
f  Ibid.,  p.  HO. 


356  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

would  expire  in  September ;  and  also  with  the  consideration  of  a 
question  concerning  the  composition  of  the  next  Assembly  which 
had  been  lately  brought  forward,  and  on  which  the  queen  was  un- 
fortunately misled  into  using  her  influence  to  procure  a  decision 
which  was  undoubtedly,  in  its  eventual  consequences,  as  disas- 
trous to  the  king's  fortunes  as  it  was  irreconcilable  with  common 
sense.  Robespierre  brought  forward  a  resolution  that  no  mem- 
bers of  the  existing  Assembly  should  be  eligible  for  a  seat  in  that 
by  which  it  was  to  be  replaced.  It  was  in  reality  a  resolution  to 
exclude  from  the  new  Assembly  not  only  every  one  who  had  any 
parliamentary  or  legislative  experience,  but  also  all  the  adherents 
or  friends  of  the  throne,  and  to  place  the  coming  elections  wholly 
in  the  power  of  the  Jacobins.  Robespierre  was  willing  to  be  ex- 
cluded himself  from  a  conviction  that,  with  such  an  Assembly  as 
would  surely  be  returned,  the  Jacobin  Club  would  practically  ex- 
ercise all  the  power  of  the  State.  But  the  Constitutional  party, 
who  saw  that  it  was  aimed  at  them,  opposed  it  with  great  vigor; 
and  would  probably  have  been  able  to  defeat  it  if  the  Royalist 
members  who  still  retained  their  seats  would  have  consented  to 
join  them.  Unhappily  the  queen  took  the  opposite  view.  With 
far  more  acuteness,  penetration,  and  fertility  of  imagination  than 
are  usually  given  to  women,  or  to  men  either,  she  had  still  in  some 
degree  the  defect  common  to  her  sex,  of  being  prone  to  confine 
her  views  to  one  side  of  a  question ;  and  to  overrule  her  reason 
by  her  feelings  and  prejudices.  Though  she  acknowledged  the 
service  which  Barnave  had  rendered  by  defeating  those  who  had 
wished  to  bring  the  king  and  herself  to  trial,  she,  nevertheless, 
still  regarded  the  Constitutionalists  in  general  with  deep  distrust 
as  the  party  which  desired  to  lower,  and  had  lowered,  the  author- 
ity and  dignity  of  the  throne ;  and,  viewing  the  whole  Assembly 
with  not  unnatural  antipathy,  she  fancied  that  one  composed 
wholly  of  new  members  could  not  possibly  be  more  unfriendly  to 
the  king's  person  and  government,  and  might  probably  be  far 
better  disposed  toward  them.  She  easily  brought  the  king  to 
adopt  her  views,  and  exerted  the  whole  of  her  influence  to  secure 
the  passing  of  the  decree,  sending  agents  to  canvass  those  depu- 
ties who  were  opposed  to  it.  With  the  Royalist  members,  the 
Extreme  Right,  her  voice  was  law,  and,  by  the  unnatural  union 
of  them  and  the  Jacobins,  the  resolution  was  carried. 

It  is  the  more  singular  that  she  should  have  been  willing  thus, 
as  it  were,  to  proscribe  the  members  of  the  present  Assembly,  be- 


HER   VIEWS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  PARTIES.  357 

cause,  in  a  very  remarkable  letter  which  she  wrote  to  her  brother 
the  emperor  at  the  end  of  July,  she  founds  the  hopes  for  the 
future,  which  she  expresses  with  a  degree  of  sanguineness  which 
can  hardly  fail  to  be  thought  strange  when  the  events  of  June 
are  remembered,  on  the  conduct  of  the  Assembly  itself.  The  let- 
ter is  too  long  to  quote  at  full  length,  but  a  few  extracts  from  it 
will  help  us  in  our  task  of  forming  a  proper  estimate  of  her  char- 
acter, from  the  unreserved  exposition  which  it  contains  of  her 
feelings,  both  past  and  present,  with  her  views  and  hopes  for  the 
future,  even  while  she  keenly  appreciates  the  difficulties  of  the 
king's  position  ;  and  from  the  unabated  eagerness  for  the  welfare 
of  France  which  it  displays  in  every  reflection  and  suggestion. 
That  she  still  considers  the  imperial  alliance  of  great  importance 
to  the  welfare  of  both  nations  will  surprise  no  one.  The  suspen- 
sion of  the  royal  authority  which  the  Assembly  had  decreed  on 
the  26th  of  June  had  been  removed  on  the  decision  that  the  king 
was  not  to  be  proceeded  against.  Yet  her  first  sentence  shows 
that  she  was  still  subjected  to  cruel  and  lawless  tyranny,  which 
even  hindered  her  correspondence  with  her  own  relations.  A 
queen  might  have  expected  to  be  able  to  write  in  security  to  an- 
other sovereign ;  a  sister  to  a  brother ;  but  La  Fayette  and  those 
in  authority  regarded  the  rights  of  neither  royalty  nor  kindred. 

"  A  friend,  my  dear  brother,  has  undertaken  to  convey  this  let- 
ter to  you,  for  I  myself  have  no  means  of  giving  you  news  of  my 
health.  I  will  not  enter  into  details  of  what  preceded  our  de- 
parture. You  have  already  known  all  the  reasons  for  it.  During 
the  events  which  befell  us  on  our  journey,  and  in  the  situation  in 
which  we  were  immediately  after  our  return  to  Paris,  I  was  pro- 
foundly distressed.  After  I  recovered  from  the  first  shock  of  the 
agitation  which  they  produced,  I  set  myself  to  work  to  reflect  on 
what  I  had  seen  ;  and  I  have  endeavored  to  form  a  clear  idea  of 
what,  in  the  actual  state  of  affairs,  the  king's  interests  are,  and 
what  the  conduct  is  which  they  prescribe  to  me.  My  ideas  have 
been  formed  by  a  combination  of  motives  which  I  will  proceed 
to  explain  to  you. 

" . . . .  The  situation  of  affairs  here  has  greatly  changed  since 
our  journey.  The  National  Assembly  was  divided  into  a  multi- 
tude of  parties.  Far  from  order  being  re-established,  every  day 
seemed  to  diminish  the  power  of  the  law.  The  king,  deprived  of 
all  authority,  did  not  even  see  any  possibility  of  recovering  it  on 
the  completion  of  the  Constitution  through  the  influence  of  the 


358  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

Assembly,  since  that  body  itself  was  every  day  losing  more  the 
respect  of  the  people.  In  short,  it  was  impossible  to  see  any  end 
to  disorder. 

"  To-day,  circumstances  present  much  more  hope.  The  men 
who  have  the  greatest  influence  in  affairs  are  united  together,  and 
have  openly  declared  for  the  preservation  of  the  monarchy  and 
the  king,  and  for  the  re -establishment  of  order.  Since  their 
union,  the  efforts  of  the  seditious  have  been  defeated  by  a  great 
superiority  of  strength.  The  Assembly  has  acquired  a  consist- 
ency and  an  authority  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom,  which  it 
seems  disposed  to  use  to  establish  the  observance  of  the  laws  and 
to  put  an  end  to  the  Revolution.  At  this  moment  the  most  mod- 
erate men,  who  have  never  ceased  to  be  opposed  to  revolutionary 
acts,  are  uniting,  because  they  see  in  union  the  only  prospect  of 
enjoying  in  safety  what  the  Revolution  has  left  them,  and  of  put- 
ting an  end  to  the  troubles  of  which  they  dread  the  continuance. 
In  short,  every  thing  seems  at  this  moment  to  contribute  to  put 
an  end  to  the  agitations  and  commotions  to  which  France  has 
been  given  over  for  the  last  two  years.  This  termination  of 
them,  however,  natural  and  possible  as  it  is,  will  not  give  the  Gov- 
ernment the  degree  of  force  and  authority  which  I  regard  as  nec- 
essary ;  but  it  will  preserve  us  from  greater  misfortunes ;  it  will 
place  us  in  a  situation  of  greater  tranquillity,  and,  when  men's 
minds  have  recovered  from  their  present  intoxication,  perhaps 
they  will  see  the  usefulness  of  giving  the  royal  authority  a  great- 
er range. 

"  This,  in  the  course  which  matters  are  now  taking,  is  what  one 
can  foresee  for  the  future,  and  I  compare  this  result  with  what  we 
could  promise  ourselves  from  a  line  of  conduct  opposed  to  the 
wishes  which  the  nation  displays.  In  that  case  I  see  an  absolute 
impossibility  of  obtaining  any  thing  except  by  the  employment 
of  a  superior  force  ;  and  on  this  last  supposition  I  will  say  noth- 
ing of  the  personal  dangers  which  the  king,  my  son,  and  I  myself 
may  have  to  encounter.  But  what  could  be  the  consequences 
but  some  enterprise,  the  issue  of  which  is  uncertain,  and  the  ulti- 
mate result  of  which,  whatever  it  might  be,  presents  disasters  such 
as  one  can  not  endure  to  contemplate?  The  army  is  in  a  bad 
state  from  want  of  leaders  and  of  subordination ;  but  the  king- 
dom is  full  of  armed  men,  and  their  imagination  is  so  inflamed  that 
it  is  impossible  to  foresee  what  they  might  do,  and  the  number 
of  victims  who  might  be  sacrificed It  is  impossible,  when 


HER  VIEWS  FOR  THE  FUTURE.  359 

one  sees  what  is  going  on  here,  to  calculate  what  might  be  the 
effects  of  their  despair.  I  only  see,  in  the  events  which  might 
arise  out  of  such  an  attempt,  but  very  doubtful  prospects  of  suc- 
cess, and  the  certainty  of  great  miseries  for  every  one 

"  If  the  Revolution  should  be  terminated  in  the  manner  of 
which  I  have  spoken,  then  it  will  be  important  that  the  king  shall 
acquire,  in  a  solid  manner,  the  confidence  and  consideration  which 
alone  can  give  a  real  strength  to  the  royal  authority.  No  means 
are  so  well  calculated  to  procure  them  for  him  as  the  influence 
which  we  might  have  over  one  of  your  resolutions*  which  would 
contribute  to  insure  peace  to  France,  and  to  dispel  disquietude, 
which  are  so  much  the  more  grievous  for  the  whole  world,  that 
they  are  among  the  principal  obstacles  to  the  re-establishment  of 
public  tranquillity.  The  share  which  in  that  way  we  should  have 
in  the  termination  of  these  troubles  would  win  over  to  us  all  men 
of  moderate  temper,  while  the  others,  especially  the  chiefs  of  the 
Revolution,  would  attach  themselves  to  us  because  of  the  sincere 
and  efficacious  inclination  which  we  should  have  shown  to  con- 
duct matters  to  the  end,  which  they  all  wish  for.  Your  own  in- 
terests seem  to  me  also  to  have  a  place  in  this  system  of  conduct. 
The  National  Assembly,  before  separating,  will  desire,  in  concert 
with  the  king,  to  determine  the  alliances  to  which  France  is  to 
continue  attached ;  and  the  power  of  Europe  which  shall  be  the 
first  to  recognize  the  Constitution,  after  it  has  been  accepted  by 
the  king,  will  undoubtedly  be  the  one  with  which  the  Assembly 
will  be  inclined  to  form  the  closest  alliance ;  and  to  these  general 
views  I  might  add  the  means  which  I  myself  have  to  dispose 
men's  minds  to  maintain  this  alliance — means  which  will  be  ex- 
tremely strengthened,  if  you  share  my  view  of  the  present  cir- 
cumstances. 

"  I  can  not  doubt  that  the  chiefs  of  the  Revolution,  who  have 
supported  the  king  in  the  last  crisis,  will  be  desirous  to  assure  to 
him  the  consideration  and  respect  necessary  to  the  exercise  of  his 
authority,  and  that  they  will  see  in  a  close  alliance  of  France  with 
that  power  with  which  he  is  connected  by  ties  of  blood,  a  means 
of  combining  his  dignity  with  the  interests  of  the  nation,  and  in 
that  way  of  consolidating  and  strengthening  a  Constitution  of 
which  they  all  agree  that  the  majesty  of  the  king  is  one  essential 
foundation. 

*  A  resolution,  that  is,  to  recognize  the  Constitution. 


360  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

"  I  do  not  know  if,  independently  of  all  other  reasons,  the  king 
will  not  find  in  that  feeling  and  in  the  inclinations  of  the  nation, 
when  it  has  recovered  its  calmness,  more  deference,  and  a  temper 
more  favorable  to  him,  than  he  could  expect  from  the  majority  of 
those  Frenchmen  who  are  at  present  out  of  the  kingdom."* 

And  a  letter  which  she  wrote  to  Mercy  a  fortnight  later  is  per- 
haps even  more  worthy  of  attention,  as  supplying  abundant  proof, 
if  proof  were  needed,  of  the  good-will  and  good  faith  which  were 
the  leading  principles  of  herself  and  the  king  in  all  their  dealings 
with  the  Assembly.  Since  her  letter  to  her  brother,  matters  had 
been  proceeding  rapidly.  She  had  found  some  means  of  treat- 
ing more  directly  than  on  any  previous  occasion,  not  only  with 
Barnave,  but  with  the  far  more  unscrupulous  A.  Lameth ;  and  the 
Assembly  had  made  such  progress  in  completing  the  Constitu- 
tion that  it  was  on  the  point  of  submitting  it  to  the  king  for  his 
acceptance.  We  have  seen  in  Marie  Antoinette's  letter  to  the 
emperor  that  she  was  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  Louis  signify- 
ing that  acceptance,  and  she  adhered  to  that  view  of  the  policy  to 
be  pursued,  though  the  last  touches  given  to  the  Constitution  had 
rendered  many  of  its  articles  far  more  unreasonable  than  she  had 
anticipated,  and  though  the  great  English  statesman,  Burke, 
whose  "  Reflections  "  of  the  preceding  year  had  naturally  caused 
him  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  ablest  advisers  on  whom  she 
could  rely,  forwarded  to  her  an  earnest  exhortation  to  induce  her 
husband  to  reject  it.  He  implored  her  "  to  have  nothing  to  do 
with  traitors."  Using  the  argument  which,  to  one  so  sensitive 
for  her  honor  as  Marie  Antoinette,  was  well  calculated  to  exert  an 
almost  irresistible  influence  over  her  mind,  he  declared  that  "  her 
resolution  at  this  most  critical  moment  was  to  decide  whether 
her  glory  was  to  be  maintained,  and  her  distresses  to  cease,  or 
whether  "  (and  he  begged  pardon  for  ever  mentioning  such  an  al- 
ternative) "  shame  and  affliction  were  to  be  her  portion  for  the 
rest  of  her  life ;"  and  he  declared  that  "  if  the  king  should  accept 
the  Constitution,  both  king  and  queen  were  ruined  forever." 

The  great  writer  was,  as  in  more  than  one  other  instance  of  his 
career,  too  earnest  in  his  conviction  that  principles  were  at  stake 
in  the  course  which  he  recommended,  to  consider  whether  that 
course  were  safe  for  those  on  whom  he  urged  it,  or  even  practi- 
cable. But  Marie  Antoinette,  as  one  on  whose  decision  the  very 

*  Arneth,  p.  188 ;  Feuillet  de  Conches,  ii.,  p.  186. 


HER  OPINION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION.  361 

lives  of  her  husband  and  her  child  might  depend,  felt  bound  to 
consider,  in  the  first  place,  how  far  her  adoption  of  the  advice  thus 
tendered  might  endanger  both;  and,  accordingly,  while  express- 
ing to  Mercy  the  full  extent  of  her  repugnance  to  the  system  of 
government,  if  indeed  it  deserved  the  name  of  a  system,  which 
the  new  Constitution  had  framed,  she  shows  that  her  disapproval 
of  it  has  in  no  degree  led  her  to  change  her  mind  on  the  practical 
question  of  the  course  which  the  king  should  pursue.  She  justi- 
fies her  decision  to  Mercy  in  a  most  elaborate  letter,  in  which  the 
whole  position  is  surveyed  with  admirable  good  sense.* 

"  Our  position  is  this :  We  are  now  on  the  point  of  having  the 
Constitution  brought  to  us  for  acceptance.  It  is  in  itself  so  mon- 
strous that  it  is  impossible  that  it  should  be  long  maintained. 
But,  in  the  position  in  which  we  are,  can  we  risk  refusing  it? 
No ;  and  I  will  prove  it  to  you.  I  am  not  speaking  of  the  per- 
sonal dangers  which  we  should  run.  We  have  fully  shown  by 
the  journey  which  we  undertook  two  months  ago  that  we  do  not 
take  our  own  safety  into  account  when  the  public  welfare  is  at 
stake.  But  this  Constitution  is  so  intrinsically  bad  that  it  can 
only  acquire  consistence  from  any  resistance  which  we  might  op- 
pose to  it.  Our  business,  therefore,  is  to  take  a  middle  course, 
which  may  save  our  honor,  and  may  put  us  in  such  a  position 
that  the  people  may  come  back  to  us  when  once  their  eyes  are 
opened,  and  they  have  become  weary  of  the  existing  state  of  af- 
fairs. I  think  also  that  it  is  necessary  that,  when  they  have  pre- 
sented the  act  to  the  king,  he  should  keep  it  by  him  a  few  days ; 
for  he  is  not  supposed  to  know  what  it  is  till  it  has  been  present- 
ed to  him  in  all  legal  form ;  and  that  then  he  should  summon 
the  Commissioners  before  him,  not  to  make  any  comments,  not 
to  demand  any  alterations,  which  perhaps  might  not  be  admitted, 
and  which  would  be  interpreted  as  an  admission  that  he  approved 
of  the  basis,  but  to  declare  that  his  opinions  are  not  changed; 
that,  in  his  declaration  of  the  20th  of  June,f  he  proved  the  ab- 
solute impossibility  of  governing  under  the  new  system,  and  that 

*  The  letter  took  several  days  to  write,  and  was  so  interrupted  that  portions 
of  it  have  three  different  dates  affixed,  August  16th,  21st,  26th.  Mercy's  let- 
ter, which  incloses  Burke's  memorial,  is  dated  the  20th,  from  London,  so  that 
the  first  portion  of  the  queen's  letter  can  not  be  regarded  as  an  intentional 
answer  to  Burke's  arguments,  though  it  is  so,  as  embodying  all  the  reasons 
which  influenced  the  queen. 

f  The  manifesto  which  he  left  behind  him  when  starting  for  Montmedy. 


362  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

he  is  still  of  the  same  mind ;  but  that,  for  the  sake  of  the  tran- 
quillity of  his  country,  he  sacrifices  himself ;  and  that,  as  his  peo- 
ple and  the  nation  stake  their  happiness  on  his  accepting  it,  he 
does  not  hesitate  to  signify  that  acceptance ;  and  that  the  sight  of 
their  happiness  will  speedily  make  him  forget  the  cruel  and  bitter 
griefs  which  they  have  inflicted  on  him  and  on  his  family. 

"  But  if  we  take  this  line  we  must  adhere  to  it ;  and,  above 
all  things,  we  must  avoid  any  step  which  can  create  distrust,  and 
we  must  move  on,  so  to  say,  always  with  the  law  in  our  hand.  I 
promise  you  that  this  is  the  best  way  to  give  them  an  early  dis- 
gust at  the  Constitution.  The  mischief  is,  that  for  this  we  shall 

want  an  able  and  a  trustworthy  ministry Several  people 

urge  us  to  reject  the  act,  and  the  king's  brothers  press  upon  him 
every  day  that  it  is  indispensable  to  do  so,  and  affirm  that  we  shall 
be  supported.  By  whom  ?"  And  she  proceeds  to  examine  the 
situation  and  policy  of  Spain,  of  the  empire  of  England,  and  of 
Prussia,  to  prove  that  from  none  of  them  is  there  any  hope  of 
active  aid,  while  to  trust  to  the  emigrants  would  be  the  worst  ex- 
pedient of  all,  because  "  we  should  then  fall  into  a  new  slavery 
worse  than  the  first,  since,  while  we  should  appear  to  be  in  some 
degree  indebted  to  them,  we  should  not  be  able  to  extricate  our- 
selves from  their  toils.  They  already  prove  this  when  they  re- 
fuse to  listen  to  the  persons  who  are  in  our  confidence,  on  the 
pretext  that  they  do  not  trust  them,  while  they  seek  to  force  us 
to  give  ourselves  up  to  M.  de  Calonne,  who,  I  fear,  in  all  that  he 
does  is  guided  by  nothing  but  his  own  ambition,  his  private  en- 
mities, and  his  habitual  levity,  thinking  every  thing  he  wishes  not 
only  possible,  but  already  done. 

"  . . . .  One  circumstance  worthy  of  remark  is  that  in  all  these 
discussions  on  the  Constitution  the  people  take  no  interest,  and 
concern  themselves  solely  about  their  own  affairs,  limiting  their 
wishes  to  having  a  Constitution  and  getting  rid  of  the  aristo- 
crats   As  to  our  acceptance  of  the  Constitution,  it  is  im- 
possible for  any  thinking  being  to  avoid  seeing  that  we  are  not 
free.  But  it  is  essential  that  we  should  not  awaken  a  suspicion 
of  our  feelings  in  the  monsters  who  surround  us.  Let  me  know 
where  the  emperor's  forces  are  and  what  is  their  present  position. 
In  every  case  the  foreign  powers  can  alone  save  us.  The  army 
is  lost.  There  is  no  money.  There  is  no  bond,  no  curb  which 
can  restrain  the  populace,  which  is  everywhere  armed.  Even  the 
chiefs  of  the  Revolution,  when  they  wish  to  speak  of  order,  are 


HER  RELIANCE  ON  FOREIGN  POWERS.  363 

not  listened  to.  This  is  the  deplorable  condition  in  which  we  are 
placed.  Add  that  we  have  not  a  single  friend — that  every  one  be- 
trays us,  some  out  of  hatred,  others  out  of  weakness  or  ambition. 
In  short,  I  actually  am  reduced  to  dread  the  day  when  they  will 
have  the  appearance  of  giving  us  a  kind  of  freedom.  At  least, 
in  the  state  of  nullity  in  which  we  are  at  present,  no  one  can 

reproach  us You  know  the  character  of  the  person  with 

whom  I  have  to  do.*  At  the  last  moment,  when  one  seems  to 
have  convinced  him,  an  argument,  a  word,  will  make  him  change 
his  mind  before  any  one  suspects  it.  This  is  the  reason  why 
many  expedients  can  not  even  be  attempted." 

On  the  21st  she  hears  that  the  Charter  will  be  presented  at  the 
end  of  the  week,  and  she  repeats  her  fears  that  the  conduct  of  the 
emigrants  may  involve  them  in  fresh  troubles.  "It  is  essential 
that  the  French,  and  most  especially  the  brothers  of  the  king, 
should  keep  in  the  background,  and  allow  the  foreign  princes  to 
act  by  themselves.  But  no  entreaty,  no  argument  from  us  will 
induce  them  to  do  so.  The  emperor  must  insist  upon  it.  It  is 
the  only  way  in  which  he  can  serve  us.  You  know  yourself  the 
mischievous  wrong-headedness  and  evil  designs  of  the  emigrants. 
The  cowards !  after  having  abandoned  us,  they  seek  to  make  us 
expose  ourselves  alone  to  danger,  and  serve  nothing  but  their 
interests.  I  do  not  accuse  the  king's  brothers ;  I  believe  their 
hearts  and  their  intentions  to  be  pure,  but  they  are  surrounded 
and  guided  by  ambitious  men  who  will  ruin  them  after  having 

first  ruined  us." On  the  26th  she  hears  that  it  will  still  be 

a  week  before  the  Constitution  is  brought  to  the  king.  "  It  is 
impossible,  considering  our  position,  that  the  king  should  refuse 
to  accept  it.  You  may  depend  upon  this  being  true,  since  I  say 
it.  You  know  my  character  sufficiently  to  be  sure  that  it  would 
incline  me  rather  to  a  noble  and  bold  course.  We  have  no  re- 
source but  in  the  foreign  powers.  They  must  come  to  our  as- 
sistance ;  but  it  is  the  emperor  who  must  put  himself  at  the  head 

of  every  thing,  and  manage  every  thing I  declare  to  you 

that  matters  are  now  come  to  such  a  state  that  it  would  be  bet- 
ter to  be  king  of  a  single  province  than  of  a  kingdom  so  abandon- 
ed and  disordered  as  this.  I  shall  endeavor,  if  I  can,  to  send  the 
emperor  information  on  all  these  matters.  But,  in  the  mean 
time,  do  you  tell  him  all  that  you  consider  necessary  to  prove  to 

»  The  king. 


364  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

him  that  we  have  no  longer  any  resource  except  in  him,  and  that 
our  happiness,  our  existence,  and  that  of  my  child  depend  on  him 
alone,  and  on  his  prudence  and  promptitude  in  action."* 

And,  however  she  from  time  to  time  caught  at  momentary 
hopes  arising  from  other  sources,  the  only  one  on  which  she  placed 
any  permanent  reliance  were  the  affection  and  power  of  her  broth- 
er ;  and  that  hope,  in  the  course  of  the  winter,  was  cut  from  under 
her  by  his  death.f  Yet  so  correct  was  her  judgment  and  appre- 
ciation of  sound  political  principles,  or,  perhaps  we  might  say, 
so  keen  was  her  sense  of  what  was  due  to  the  independence  and 
dignity  of  France,  in  spite  of  its  present  disloyalty,  that  a  report 
that  the  emperor  and  Prussia  had,  by  implication,  claimed  a  right 
to  dictate  to  France  in  matters  of  her  internal  government  drew 
from  her  a  warm  remonstrance.  As  sovereign  and  brother  she 
conceived  that  Leopold  had  a  right  to  interfere  to  insure  the  safe- 
ty of  his  own  sister  and  of  a  brother  sovereign ;  but  she  never 
desired  him  to  interpose  for  any  other  object.  From  her  child- 
hood, as  we  have  seen  more  than  once,  she  had  learned  to  re- 
gard the  Prussian  character  and  Prussian  designs  with  abhor- 
rence. And  in  a  letter  to  Mercy  of  the  12th  of  September,  after 
expressing  an  earnest  hope  that  the  emperor  will  not  allow  him- 
self to  be  guided  by  "  the  cunning  of  Calonne,  and  the  detestable 
policy  of  Prussia,"  she  adds,  "  It  is  said  here  that  in  the  agree- 
ment signed  at  Pilnitz,J  the  two  powers  engage  never  to  permit 
the  new  French  Constitution  to  be  established.  There  certainly 
are  things  which  foreign  powers  have  a  right  to  oppose,  but,  as 
to  what  concerns  the  internal  laws  of  a  country,  every  nation  has 
a  right  to  adopt  those  which  suit  it.  They  would  be  wrong, 
therefore,  to  intervene  in  such  a  matter;  and  all  the  world 

*  Feuillet  de  Conches,  ii.,  p.  228  ;  Arneth,  p.  203. 

f  The  Emperor  Leopold  died  March  1st,  1792. 

\  The  declaration  of  Pilnitz,  drawn  up  by  the  emperor  and  the  King  of 
Prussia  at  a  personal  interview,  August  21st,  1791,  did  not  in  express  words 
denounce  the  new  Constitution  (which,  in  fact,  they  had  not  seen),  but,  after 
declaring  "  the  situation  of  the  King  of  France  to  be  a  matter  of  common  in- 
terest to  all  European  sovereigns,"  and  expressing  a  hope  that "  the  reality  of 
that  interest  will  be  duly  appreciated  by  the  other  powers  whose  assistance 
they  invoke,"  they  propose  that  those  other  powers  shall  employ,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  their  majesties,  the  most  efficacious  means,  in  order  to  enable  the 
King  of  France  to  consolidate  in  the  most  perfect  liberty  the  foundation  of  a 
monarchical  government,  comformable  alike  to  the  rights  of  sovereigns  and 
the  well-being  of  the  French  nation." — ALISON,  ch.  ix.,  §  90. 


HER  SENSE  OF  HER  DIFFICULTIES.  365 

would  see  in  such  an  act  a  proof  of  the  intrigues  of  the  emi- 
grants."* 

She  proceeds  to  tell  him  that  all  is  settled.  The  king  had 
adopted  the  line  which  she  had  marked  out  for  him  in  her  former 
letter.  The  Constitution  had  been  presented  to  him  on  the  3d  of 
September.  He  had  taken  a  few  days  to  consider  it,  not  with 
the  idea  of  proposing  the  slightest  alteration,  but  in  order  to  avoid 
the  appearance  of  acting  under  compulsion ;  and,  on  the  same 
day  on  which  she  wrote  to  Mercy,  he  was  drawing  up  a  letter  to 
the  Assembly,  to  announce  his  intention  of  visiting  the  Assembly 
to  give  it  his  royal  assent  in  due  form.  But,  though  she  would 
not  have  had  him  act  otherwise,  she  can  not  announce  this  appar- 
ent termination  of  the  contest  without  some  natural  expressions 
of  grief  and  indignation. 

"  At  last  the  die  is  cast.  All  that  we  have  now  to  do  is  to  reg- 
ulate the  future  progress  and  conduct  of  affairs  as  circumstances 
may  permit.  I  only  wish  that  others  would  regulate  their  con- 
duct by  mine.  But  even  in  our  own  inner  circle  we  have  great 
difficulties  and  great  conflicts.  Pity  me:  I  assure  you  that  it 
requires  more  courage  to  support  the  condition  in  which  I  am 
placed  than  to  encounter  a  pitched  battle.  And  the  more  so  that 
I  do  not  deceive  myself,  and  that  I  see  nothing  but  misery  in  the 
want  of  energy  shown  by  some,  and  the  evil  designs  of  others. 
My  God !  is  it  possible  that,  endowed  as  I  am  with  force  of  char- 
acter, and  feeling  as  I  do  so  thoroughly  the  blood  which  runs  in 
my  veins,  I  should  yet  be  destined  to  pass  my  days  in  such  an 
age  and  with  such  men  ?  But,  for  all  this,  never  believe  that  my 
courage  is  deserting  me.  Not  for  my  own  sake,  but  for  the 
sake  of  my  child,  I  will  support  myself,  and  I  will  fulfill  to  the 
end  my  long  and  painful  career.  I  can  no  longer  see  what  I  am 
writing.  Farewell."f 

Tears,  we  may  suppose,  were  blinding  her  eyes,  in  spite  of  all 
her  fortitude.  There  was  no  exaggeration  in  her  declaration  to 
the  Empress  Catherine  of  Russia,  with  whom  at  this  time  she  was 
in  frequent  communication,  that  the  "  distrust  which  was  shown 
by  all  around  them  was  a  moral  and  continual  death,  a  thousand 
times  worse  than  that  physical  death  which  was  a  release  from  all 
miseries.''^  And  in  the  same  letter  she  explains  that  to  remove 

*  Arneth,  p.  208.  f  Ibid.,  p.  210 ;  Feuillet  de  Conches,  ii.,  p.  325. 

\  Letter,  date  December  3d,  1791.     Feuillet  de  Conches,  iv.,  p.  278. 


366  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

this  distrust  was  one  principal  object  which  the  king  and  she 
had  in  view  in  all  their  measures.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  his  conces- 
sions, the  week  was  not  to  pass  without  fresh  insults  being  offer- 
ed to  the  king,  which  shocked  even  his  phlegmatic  apathy.  The 
letter  which  he  sent  to  the  Assembly  to  announce  his  compliance 
with  its  wishes  was  indeed  received  with  acclamations  which,  if 
not  sincere,  were  at  least  loud,  and  apparently  imanimous ;  and, 
as  if  in  reply  to  it,  La  Fayette  proposed  and  carried  a  motion  that 
the  Assembly  should  pass  an  act  of  amnesty  for  all  political  of- 
fenses ;  and  a  magnificent  festival  was  appointed  to  be  held  in 
the  Champ  de  Mars  on  the  following  Sunday,  in  celebration  of 
the  joyful  event.  But,  after  the  first  brief  excitement  had  passed 
away,  the  Jacobin  faction  recovered  its  ascendency,  and  contrived 
to  make  that  very  festival,  which  was  designed  to  express  the 
gratitude  of  the  nation,  an  occasion  of  further  humiliation  to  the 
unhappy  Louis.  Every  arrangement  for  the  day  was  discussed 
in  a  spirit  of  the  bitterest  disloyalty.  When  the  question  was 
raised,  which  in  any  other  Assembly  that  ever  met  in  the  world 
would  have  been  thought  needless,  what  attitude  the  members 
were  to  preserve  while  the  king  was  taking  the  prescribed  oath  to 
observe  the  Constitution,  a  hundred  voices  shouted  out  that  they 
should  all  keep  their  seats,  and  that  the  king  should  swear,  stand- 
ing and  bare-headed ;  and  when  one  deputy  of  high  reputation, 
M.  Malouet,  remonstrated  against  such  a  vote,  arguing  that  so  to 
treat  the  chief  of  the  State  would  be  a  greater  insult  to  the  nation 
than  even  to  himself,  a  deputy  from  Brittany  cried  out  that  M. 
Malouet  and  those  who  thought  with  him  might  receive  Louis  on 
their  knees,  if  they  liked,  but  that  the  rest  of  the  Assembly  should 
be  seated. 

And,  in  accordance  with  the  feeling  thus  shown,  every  mark  of 
respect  was  studiously  withheld  from  the  unhappy  monarch,  and 
every  care  was  taken  to  show  him  that  every  deputy  considered 
himself  his  equal.  Two  chairs  exactly  similar  were  provided  for 
him  and  for  the -president;  and  when,  after  taking  the  oath  and 
affixing  his  signature  to  the  act,  the  king  resumed  his  seat,  the 
president,  who,  having  to  reply  to  him  in  a  short  address,  had  at 
first  risen  for  that  purpose,  on  seeing  that  Louis  retained  his  seat, 
sat  down  beside  him,  and  finished  his  speech  in  that  position. 
Louis  felt  the  affront.  He  contained  himself  while  in  the  hall, 
and  while  the  members  were  conducting  him  back  to  the  palace, 
which  they  presently  did  amidst  the  music  of  military  bands  and 


TUMULT  AT  THE  THEATRE.  367 

the  salutes  of  artillery.  But  when  his  escort  had  left  him,  and  he 
reached  his  own  apartments,  his  pride  gave  way.  The  queen  with 
the  dauphin  had  been  present  in  a  box  hastily  fitted  up  for  her, 
and  had  followed  him  back.  He  felt  for  her  more  than  for  him- 
self. Bursting  into  tears,  he  said,  "  It  is  all  over.  You  have 
seen  my  humiliation.  Why  did  I  ever  bring  you  into  France  for 
such  degradation  ?"  And  the  queen,  while  endeavoring  to  con- 
sole him,  turned  to  Madame  de  Campan,  who  has  recorded  the 
scene,  and  dismissed  her  from  her  attendance.*  "  Leave  us,"  she 
said,  "  leave  us  to  ourselves."  She  could  not  bear  that  even  that 
faithful  servant  should  remain  to  be  a  witness  to  the  despair  and 
prostration  of  her  sovereign. 

The  very  rejoicings  were  turned  by  the  agents  of  the  Jacobins 
into  occasions  for  further  outrages.  The  whole  city  was  illumi- 
nated, and  the  sovereigns  yielded  to  the  entreaties  of  the  popular 
leaders,  to  drive  through  the  streets  and  the  Champs  Elysees  to 
see  the  illumination.  The  populace,  who  believed  the  Revolution 
at  an  end  and  their  freedom  secured,  cheered  them  heartily  as 
they  passed ;  but  at  every  cry  of  "  Vive  le  roi,"  a  stentorian  voice, 
close  to  the  royal  carriage,  shouted  out,  "  Not  so :  Vive  la  na- 
tion !"  and  the  queen,  though  it  was  plain  that  the  ruffian  had 
been  hired  thus  to  outrage  them,  almost  fainted  with  terror  at  his 
ferocity.  A  few  days  afterward,  the  insults  were  renewed  even 
more  pointedly.  The  royal  family  went  in  state  to  the  opera, 
where,  before  their  arrival,  the  Jacobins  had  packed  the  pit  with 
a  gang  of  their  own  hirelings,  whose  unpowdered  hair  made  them 
conspicuous  objects,  f  The  opera  was  one  of  Gretry's,  "Les 
EVenements  Imprevus,"  in  which  one  of  the  duets  contains  the 
line  "Ah,  comme  j'aime  ma  maitresse."  Madame  Dugazon,  a 
popular  singer  of  the  day,  as  she  uttered  the  words,  bowed  toward 
the  royal  box,  and  instantly  the  whole  pit  was  in  a  fury.  "  No 
mistress  for  us  !  no  master!  Liberty !"  The  whole  house  was  in 
an  uproar.  The  king's  partisans  and  adherents  replied  with  loyal 
cheers,  "  Vive  le  roi !  Vive  la  reine !"  The  pit  roared  out,  "  No 
master !  no  queen !"  and  the  Jacobins  even  proceeded  to  acts  of 
violence  toward  all  who  refused  to  join  in  their  cry.  Blows  were 


*  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  xix. 

\  "  Leurs  touffes  de  cheveux  noirs  volaient  dans  la  salle,  eux  seuls  a  cette 
6poque  avaient  quitt6  1'usage  de  poudrer  lea  cheveux." — Note  on  the  Passage 
by  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  xix. 


368  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

struck,  and  it  became  necessary  to  send  for  a  company  of  the 
Guard  to  restore  order. 

Yet  when,  on  the  last  day  of  the  month,  the  ting  visited  the 
Assembly*  to  declare  its  dissolution,  the  president  addressed  him 
in  terms  of  the  most  loyal  gratitude,  affirming  that  by  his  accept- 
ance of  the  Constitution,  he  had  earned  the  blessings  of  all  fut- 
ure generations;  and  when  he  quitted  the  hall,  the  populace  es- 
corted the  royal  carriage  back  to  the  palace  with  vociferous  cheers. 
Though,  in  the  eyes  of  impartial  observers,  this  display  of  return- 
ing good-will  was  more  than  counterbalanced  when,  as  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Assembly  came  out,  some  of  the  Royalists  and  Consti- 
tutionalists were  hooted,  and  some  of  the  fiercest  Jacobins  were 
greeted  with  still  more  enthusiastic  acclamations. 

*  This  first  Assembly,  as  having  framed  the  Constitution,  is  often  called  the 
Constituent  Assembly ;  the  second,  that  which  was  about  to  meet,  beiug  dis- 
tinguished as  the  Legislative  Assembly. 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  NEW  ASSEMBLY.  369 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Composition  of  the  New  Assembly. — Rise  of  the  Girondins. — Their  Corrup- 
tion and  Eventual  Fate. — Vergniaud's  Motions  against  the  King. — Favora- 
ble Reception  of  the  King  at  the  Assembly,  and  at  the  Opera. — Changes  in 
the  Ministry. — The  King's  and  Queen's  Language  to  M.  Bertrand  de  Mole- 
ville. — The  Count  de  Narbonne. — Petion  is  elected  Mayor  of  Paris. — Scar- 
city of  Money,  and  Great  Hardships  of  the  Royal  Family. — Presents  arrive 
from  Tippoo  Sahib. — The  Dauphin. — The  Assembly  passes  Decrees  against 
the  Priests  and  the  Emigrants. — Misconduct  of  the  Emigrants. — Louis  re- 
fuses his  Assent  to  the  Decrees. — He  issues  a  Circular  condemning  Emi- 
gration. 

THE  new  Assembly  met  on  the  1st  of  October,  and  its  compo- 
sition afforded  the  Royalists,  or  even  the  Constitutionalists,  the 
party  that  desired  to  stand  by  the  Constitution  which  had  just 
been  ratified,  very  little  prospect  of  a  re  -  establishment  of  tran- 
quillity. The  mischievous  effect  of  the  vote  which  excluded 
members  of  the  last  Assembly  from  election  was  seen  in  the  very 
lists  of  those  who  had  been  returned.  In  the  whole  number  there 
were  scarcely  a  dozen  members  of  noble  or  gentle  birth ;  the  num- 
ber of  ecclesiastics  was  equally  small ;  while  property  was  as  little 
represented  as  the  nobility  or  the  Church.  It  was  reckoned  that 
of  the  whole  body  scarcely  fifty  possessed  two  thousand  francs  a 
year.  The  general  youth  of  the  members  was  as  conspicuous  as 
their  poverty ;  half  of  them  had  hardly  attained  middle  age ;  a 
great  many  were  little  more  than  boys.  The  Jacobins  themselves, 
who,  before  the  elections,  had  reckoned  on  swaying  their  decisions 
by  terror,  could  hardly  have  anticipated  a  result  which  would  place 
the  entire  body  so  wholly  at  their  mercy. 

But  what  was  still  more  ominous  of  evil  was  the  rise  of  a  new 
party,  known  as  that  of  the  Girondins,  from  the  circumstance  of 
some  of  its  most  influential  members  coming  from  the  Gironde, 
one  of  the  departments  which  the  late  Assembly  had  carved  out 
of  the  old  province  of  Gascony.  It  was  not  absolutely  a  new  par- 
ty, since  the  foundations  of  it  had  been  laid,  during  the  last  two 
months  of  the  old  Assembly,  by  Potion  and  a  low-born  pamphlet- 

24 


370  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

eer  named  Brissot,  who,  as  editor  of  a  newspaper  to  which  he  gave 
the  name  of  Le  Patriote  Franfais,  rivaled  the  most  blood-thirsty 
of  the  Jacobins  in  exciting  the  worst  passions  of  the  populace. 
But  Petion  and  Brissot  had  only  sown  the  seeds.  The  opening 
of  the  new  Assembly  at  once  gave  it  growth  and  vigor,  when  the 
deputies  from  the  Gironde  plunged  into  the  arena  of  debate,  and 
showed  an  undeniable  superiority  in  eloquence  to  every  other 
party.  The  chiefs,  Vergniaud,  Gensonne,  and  Guadet,  were  law- 
yers who  had  never  obtained  any  practice.  Isnard,  the  first  man 
to  make  an  open  profession  of  atheism  in  the  Assembly,  was  the 
son  of  a  perfumer  in  Provence.  They  were  adventurers  as  utter- 
ly without  principle  as  without  resources.  And  their  first  thought 
appears  to  have  been  to  make  money  of  the  king's  difficulties,  and 
to  sell  themselves  to  him.  They  applied  to  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  M.  de  Lessart,  proposing  to  place  the  whole  of  their  in- 
fluence at  the  service  of  the  Government,  on  condition  of  his  se- 
curing each  of  them  a  pension  of  six  thousand  francs  a  month.* 
M.  de  Lessart  would  not  have  objected  to  buy  them,  but  he  thought 
the  price  which  they  set  upon  themselves  too  high ;  and  as  they 
adhered  to  their  demand,  the  negotiation  went  off,  and  they  re- 
solved to  revenge  themselves  on  his  royal  master  with  all  the  mal- 
ice of  disappointed  rapacity. 

As  none  of  them  had  any  force  of  character,  they  fell  under  the 
influence  of  the  wife  of  one  of  their  number,  a  small  manufact- 
urer, named  Roland,  the  same  who,  as  we  have  already  seen,  was 
the  first  to  raise  the  cry  of  blood  in  France,  and  to  recommend  the 
assassination  of  the  king  and  queen  while  they  were  still  in  fancied 
security  at  Versailles.  Under  the  direction  of  this  fierce  woman, 
whose  ferocity  was  rendered  more  formidable  by  her  undoubted 
talents,  the  Girondins  began  an  internecine  war  with  the  king,  who 
had  refused  them  the  wages  which  they  had  asked.  They  planned 
and  carried  out  the  sanguinary  attacks  on  the  palace  in  the  summer 
of  the  next  year.  They  brought  Louis  to  the  scaffold  by  the  una- 
nimity of  their  votes.  Yet  it  would  have  been  more  fortunate  for 
themselves  as  well  as  for  him  had  they  been  less  exorbitant  in  their 

*  "  Memoires  Particuliers,"  etc.,  par  A.  F.  Bcrtrand  de  Moleville,  i.,  p.  355. 
Brissot,  Isnard,  Vergniaud,  Guadet,  and  an  infamous  ecclesiastic,  the  Abbe  Fau- 
chet,  are  those  whom  he  particularly  mentions,  adding  :  "  Mais  M.  de  Lessart 
trouva  que  c'6tait  les  payer  trop  cher,  et  comme  ils  ne  voulurent  rien  rabattre 
de  leur  demande,  cette  n£gociation  n'eut  aucune  suite,  et  ne  produisit  d'autre 
effet  que  d'aigrir  davantage  ces  cinq  deputes  contre  ce  ministre." 


INSOLENCE  OF  THE  GWONDINS.  37 1 

demands,  and  had  they  connected  themselves  with  the  Government 
as  they  desired.  For  though  they  succeeded  in  their  treason, 
though  Madame  Roland  saw  the  accomplishment  of  her  wish  in 
the  murder  of  the  king  and  queen,  their  success  was  equally  fatal 
to  themselves.  Almost  all  of  them  perished  on  the  same  scaffold 
to  which  they  had  consigned  their  virtuous  sovereigns,  meeting  a 
fate  in  one  respect  worse  even  than  theirs,  from  the  infamy  of  the 
names  which  they  have  left  behind  them. 

Yet  for  a  few  days  it  seemed  as  if  their  malignity  would  miss 
its  aim.  They  did  not  wait  a  single  day  before  displaying  it ; 
but,  at  the  preliminary  meeting  of  the  Assembly,  before  it  was 
opened  for  the  dispatch  of  business,  Vergniaud  proposed  to  de- 
clare it  illegal  to  speak  of  the  king  as  his  majesty,  or  to  address 
him  as  "  sire ;"  while  another  deputy,  named  Couthon,  who  at 
first  belonged  to  the  same  party,  though  he  afterward  joined  the 
Jacobins,  carried  a  motion  that,  when  Louis  came  to  open  the 
Assembly,  the  president  should  occupy  the  place  of  honor,  and 
the  second  seat  should  be  allotted  to  the  sovereign. 

Still,  for  a  moment  it  seemed  as  if  they  had  overshot  their  mark, 
and  as  if  the  more  loyal  party  would  be  able  to  withstand  and 
defeat  them.  The  Assembly  itself  was  compelled  to  repeal  its 
recent  votes,  since  Louis,  whom  indignation  for  once  inspired 
with  greater  firmness  than  he  usually  displayed,  refused  to  open 
the  new  Assembly  in  person  unless  he  were  to  be  received  with 
the  honors  to  which  his  rank  entitled  him.  The  offensive  reso- 
lutions were  canceled;  and,  when  he  had  therefore  opened  the 
session  in  a  dignified  and  conciliatory  speech  which  was  chiefly 
of  his  own  composition,  the  president,  M.  Pastoret,  a  member  of 
the  Constitutional  party,  replied  in  language  which  was  not  only 
respectful,  but  affectionate.  The  Constitution,  he  said,  had  given 
the  king  friends  in  those  who  were  formerly  only  styled  his  sub- 
jects. The  Assembly  and  the  nation  felt  the  need  of  his  love. 
As  the  Constitution  had  rendered  him  the  greatest  monarch  in  the 
world,  so  his  attachment  to  it  would  place  him  among  the  kings 
most  beloved  by  their  people. 

And  it  seemed  as  if  the  Parisians  in  general  shared  to  the  full 
the  loyal  sentiments  uttered  by  M.  Pastoret.  Writing  the  same 
week  to  her  brother,  Marie  Antoinette,  with  a  confidence  which 
could  only  spring  from  a  sincere  attachment  to  the  whole  nation, 
reiterated  her  old  opinion  that  "  the  good  citizens  and  good  peo- 
ple had  always  in  their  hearts  been  friendly  to  the  king  and  her- 


372  LIFE  OF  MA.R1E  ANTOINETTE. 

self;"*  and  expressed  her  belief  that  since  the  acceptance  of  the 
Constitution  the  people  "  had  again  learned  to  trust  them."  She 
was  "  far  from  giving  herself  up  to  a  blind  confidence.  She 
knew  that  the  disaffected  had  not  abandoned  their  treasonable 
purposes ;  but,  as  the  king  and  she  herself  were  resolved  to  unite 
themselves  in  sincere  good  faith  to  the  people,  it  was  impossible 
but  that,  when  their  real  feelings  were  known,  the  bulk  of  the 
people  should  return  to  them.  The  mischief  was  that  the  well- 
meaning  knew  not  how  to  act  in  concert." 

It  did  seem  as  if  she  were  correct  in  her  estimate  of  the  feel- 
ings of  the  citizens,  when,  in  the  evening  of  the  day  on  which 
Louis  had  opened  the  Assembly,  the  whole  royal  family,  includ- 
ing the  two  children,  went  to  the  opera ;  and,  as  if  with  express 
design  to  ratify  the  loyal  language  of  the  president  of  the  As- 
sembly, the  whole  audience  greeted  them  with  a  most  enthusiast- 
ic reception.  More  than  once  they  interrupted  the  performance 
with  loud  cheers  for  both  king  and  queen ;  and  as  the  pleasure  of 
children  is  alyvays  an  attractive  sight,  they  sympathized  especially 
with  the  delight  of  the  little  dauphin,  their  future  king,  as  they 
all  then  thought  him,  who,  being  new  to  such  a  spectacle,  only 
took  his  eyes  off  the  stage  to  imitate  the  gestures  of  the  actors  to 
his  mother,  and  draw  her  attention  to  them. 

In  more  than  one  of  her  letters  the  queen  had  vehemently  de- 
plored the  want  of  a  stronger  ministry  than  of  late  had  been  in 
the  king's  service.  It  was  a  natural  complaint,  though  in  fact 
the  ability  or  want  of  ability  displayed  by  the  ministers  was  a 
matter  of  but  slight  practical  importance,  so  completely  had  the 
Assembly  engrossed  the  whole  power  of  the  State ;  but  in  the 
course  of  the  autumn  some  changes  were  made,  one  of  which  for 
a  time  certainly  added  to  the  comfort  of  the  sovereigns.  M. 
Montmorin  retired;  M.  de  Lessart  was  transferred  to  his  office; 
and  M.  Bertrand  de  Moleville,  who  was  entirely  new  to  official 
life,  became  the  minister  of  marine.  The  whole  kingdom  did 
not  contain  a  man  more  attached  to  the  king  and  queen.  But  he 
combined  statesman-like  prudence  with  his  loyalty ;  and  his  con- 
duct before  he  took  office  elicited  a  very  remarkable  proof  of  the 
singleness  of  mind  and  purpose  with  which  the  king  and  queen 
had  accepted  the  Constitution.  M.  Bertrand  had  previously  re- 

*  Feuillet  de  Conches,  ii.,  p.  414,  date  October  4th:  "Je  pense  qu'au  fond 
le  bon  bourgeois  et  le  bon  peuple  ont  toujours  6t£  bien  pour  nous." 


GOOD  FAITH  OF  LOUIS.  373 

fused  office,  and  was  very  unwilling  to  take  it  now;  and  he 
frankly  told  Louis  that  he  could  not  hope  to  be  of  any  real  serv- 
ice to  him  unless  he  knew  the  plans  which  the  king  might  have 
formed  with  respect  to  the  Constitution,  and  the  line  of  conduct 
which  he  desired  his  ministers  to  observe  on  the  subject;  and 
Louis  told  him  distinctly  that  though  "  he  was  far  from  regard- 
ing the  Constitution  as  a  masterpiece,  and  though  he  thought  it 
easy  to  reform  it  advantageously  in  many  particulars,  yet  he  had 
sworn  to  observe  it  as  it  was,  and  that  he  was  bound  to  be,  and 
resolved  to  be,  strictly  faithful  to  his  oath ;  the  more  so  because 
it  seemed  to  him  that  the  most  exact  observance  of  the  Consti- 
tution was  the  surest  method  to  lead  the  nation  to  understand  it 
in  all  its  bearings;  when  the  people  themselves  would  perceive 
the  character  of  the  changes  in  it  which  it  was  desirable  to 
make." 

M.  Bertrand  expressed  his  warm  approval  of  the  wisdom  of 
such  a  policy,  but  thought  it  so  important  to  know  how  far  the 
queen  coincided  in  her  husband's  sentiments  that  he  ventured  to 
put  the  question  to  his  majesty.  The  king  assured  him  that  he 
had  been  speaking  her  sentiments  as  well  as  his  own,  and  that  he 
should  hear  them  from  her  own  lips ;  and  accordingly  the  queen 
immediately  granted  the  new  minister  an  audience,  in  which,  after 
expressing,  with  her  habitual  grace  and  kindness,  her  feeling  that, 
by  accepting  office  at  such  a  time,  he  was  laying  both  the  king 
and  herself  under  a  personal  obligation,  she  added,  "  The  king  has 
explained  to  you  his  intentions  with  respect  to  the  Constitution ; 
do  not  you  think  that  the  only  plan  for  him  to  follow  is  to  be 
faithful  to  his  oath  ?"  "  Undoubtedly,  madame."  "  Well,  you 
may  depend  upon  it  that  nothing  will  make  us  change.  Have 
courage,  M.  Bertrand;  I  hope  that,  with  patience,  firmness,  and 
consistency,  all  is  not  yet  lost."* 

Nor  was  M.  Bertrand  the  only  one  of  the  ministers  who  re- 
ceived proofs  of  the  resolution  of  the  queen  to  adhere  steadily 
to  the  Constitution.  There  was  also  a  new  minister  of  war,  the 
Count  de  Narbonne,  as  firmly  attached  to  the  persons  of  the  sov- 
ereigns as  M.  Bertrand  himself,  though  in  political  principle  more 

*  "  Memoires  Particuliers,"  etc.,  par  A.  F.  Bertrand  de  Moleville,  i.,  p.  10- 
12.  It  furnishes  a  striking  proof  of  the  general  accuracy  of  Dr.  Moore's  in- 
formation, that  he,  in  his  "  View  "  (ii.,  p.  439),  gives  the  same  account  of  this 
conversation,  his  work  being  published  above  twenty  years  before  that  of  M.. 
Bertrand  de  Moleville. 


374  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

inclined  to  the  views  of  the  Constitutionalists  than  to  those  of 
the  extreme  Royalists.  He  was  likewise  a  man  of  considerable 
capacity,  eloquent  and  fertile  in  resources ;  but  he  was  ambitious 
and  somewhat  vain ;  and  he  was  so  elated  at  the  approval  ex- 
pressed by  the  Assembly  of  a  report  on  the  military  resources  of 
the  kingdom  which  he  laid  before  it  soon  after  his  appointment, 
that  he  obtained  an  audience  of  the  queen,  the  object  of  which  ( 
was  to  convince  her  that  the  only  means  of  saving  the  State  was 
to  confer  on  a  man  of  talent,  energy,  sagacity,  and  activity,  who 
enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the  Assembly  and  of  the  nation,  the 
post  of  prime  minister;  and  he  admitted  that  he  intended  to  des- 
ignate himself  by  this  description.  Marie  Antoinette,  though 
fully  aware  of  the  desirableness  of  having  a  single  man  of  ability 
and  firmness  at  the  head  of  the  administration,  was  for  a  moment 
surprised  out  of  her  habitual  courtesy.  She  could  not  forbear  a 
smile,  and  in  plain  terms  asked  him  "  if  he  were  crazy."*  But  she 
proceeded  with  her  usual  kindness  to  explain  to  him  the  imprac- 
ticability of  the  scheme  which  he  had  suggested,  and  the  founda- 
tion of  her  argument  was  an  explanation  that  such  an  appoint- 
ment would  be  a  violation  of  the  Constitution,  which  forbade  the 
king  to  create  any  new  ministerial  office.  And  the  count  deserves 
to  have  it  mentioned  to  his  honor  that  the  rebuff  which  he  had 
received  in  no  degree  cooled  his  attachment  to  the  king  and 
queen,  or  the  zeal  with  which  he  labored  for  their  service. 

We  have  no  information  how  far  the  new  minister  coincided 
in  a  step  which  the  queen  took  in  the  course  of  November,  and 
which  is  commonly  ascribed  to  her  judgment  alone.  Before  its 
dissolution,  the  late  Assembly  had  broken  up  the  National  Guard 
of  Paris  into  separate  legions,  and  had  suppressed  the  appoint- 
ment of  commander -in -chief  of  the  forces;  and  La  Fayette, 
whom  this  measure  had  left  without  employment,  feeling  keenly 
the  diminution  of  his  importance,  and  instigated  by  the  jestless- 
ness  common  to  men  of  moderate  capacity,  conceived  the  hope  of 
succeeding  Bailly  in  the  mayoralty  of  Paris,  which  that  magis- 
trate was  on  the  point  of  resigning. 

It  had  become  a  post  of  great  consequence,  since  the  extent  to 
which  the  authority  of  the  crown  had  been  pared  away  tended  to 

*  "La  reine  lui  repondit  par  un  sourire  de  piti6,  et  lui  demands  s'il  etait 

fou C'est  par  la  reine  elle-meme  que,  le  lendemain  de  cette  Strange 

scene,  je  fus  instruit  de  tous  les  details  que  je  viens  de  rapporter." — BER- 
TRAM) DE  MOLEVILLE,  i.,  p.  126. 


LA  FAYETTE'ti  ANIMOSITY  TO  THE  KINO.  375 

make  the  mayor  the  absolute  dictator  of  the  capital ;  and  conse- 
quently the  Jacobins  were  anxious  to  secure  the  office  for  one  of 
the  extreme  Revolutionary  party,  and  set  up  Petion  as  a  rival  can- 
didate. The  election  belonged  to  the  citizens,  and,  as  in  the  city 
the  two  parties  possessed  almost  equal  strength,  it  was  soon  seen 
that  the  court,  which  had  by  no  means  lost  its  influence  among 
the  tradesmen  and  shop-keepers,  had  the  power  of  deciding  the 
contest  in  favor  of  the  candidate  for  whom  it  should  pronounce. 
Marie  Antoinette  declared  for  Petion.  She  knew  him  to  be  a 
Jacobin,*  but  he  was  so  devoid  of  any  reputation  for  ability  that 
she  did  not  fear  him.  Nor,  except  that  he  had  behaved  with 
boorish  disrespect  and  ill-manners  during  their  melancholy  return 
from  Varennes,  had  she  any  reason  for  suspecting  him  of  any 
special  enmity  to  the  king. 

But  La  Fayette,  though  always  loud  in  his  professions  of  loy- 
alty, had  never  lost  an  opportunity  of  offering  personal  insults  to 
both  the  king  and  herself.  It  was  to  his  shameful  neglect  (to 
put  his  conduct  in  the  most  favorable  light)  that  she  justly  at- 
tributed the  danger  to  which  she  had  been  exposed  at  Versailles, 
and  the  compulsion  which  had  been  put  upon  the  king  to  take 
up  his  residence  in  Paris ;  and,  not  to  mention  a  constant  series 
of  petty  insults  which  he  had  heaped  on  both  Louis  and  herself, 
and  on  the  Royalists  as  a  body,  he  had  given  unmistakable  proofs 
of  his  personal  animosity  toward  the  king  by  his  conduct  on  the 
21st  of  June,  and  by  the  indecent  rigor  with  which  he  treated 
them  both  after  their  return  from  Varennes.  Even  when  he  was 
loudest  in  the  profession  of  his  desire  and  power  to  influence  the 
Assembly  in  the  king's  favor,  one  of  his  own  friends  had  told  him 
to  his  face  that  he  was  insincere,f  and  that  Louis  could  not  and 
ought  not  to  trust  his  promises ;  and  every  part  of  his  conduct 
toward  the  royal  pair  was  stamped  with  duplicity  as  well  as  with 
ill-will.  It  was  not  strange,  therefore,  indeed  it  was  fully  consist- 
ent with  the  honest  openness  of  Marie  Antoinette's  own  charac- 
ter, that  she  should  prefer  an  open  enemy  to  a  pretended  friend. 
She  even  believed  what,  from  the  very  commencement  of  the  Rev- 
olution, many  had  suspected,  that  La  Fayette  cherished  views  of 

*  She  herself  called  him  so  on  this  occasion,  and  he  belonged  to  the  Jaco- 
bin Club ;  but  he  was  also  one  of  the  Girondin  party,  of  which,  indeed,  he 
was  one  of  the  founders,  and  it  was  as  a  Girondin  that  he  was  afterward  pur- 
sued to  death  by  Robespierre. 

f  Narrative  of  the  Comte  Valentin  Esterhazy,  Feuillet  de  Conches,  iv.,  p.  40. 


376  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

personal  ambition,  and  aimed  at  reviving  the  old  authority  of  a 
Maire  du  Palais  over  a  Roi  Faineant.*  She  therefore  directed 
her  friends  to  throw  their  weight  into  the  scale  in  favor  of  Pe- 
tion,  who  was  accordingly  elected  by  a  great  majority,  while  the 
marquis,  greatly  chagrined,  retired  for  a  time  to  his  estate  in  Au- 
vergne. 

The  victory,  however,  was  an  unfortunate  one  for  the  court. 
It  contributed  to  increase  the  confidence  of  its  enemies ;  and,  as 
their  instinct  showed  them  that  it  was  from  the  resolution  of  the 
queen  that  they  had  the  most  formidable  opposition  to  dread,  it 
was  against  her  that,  from  their  first  entrance  into  the  Assembly, 
Vergniaud  and  his  friends  specially  exerted  themselves ;  Vergni- 
aud  openly  contending  that  the  inviolability  of  the  sovereign, 
which  was  an  article  of  the  new  Constitution,  applied  only  to  the 
king  himself,  and  in  no  degree  to  his  consort ;  while  in  the  Jac- 
obin and  Cordelier  Clubs  the  coarsest  libels  were  poured  forth 
against  her  with  unremitting  perseverance  to  stimulate  and  justi- 
fy the  most  obscene  and  ferocious  threats.  The  coarsest  ruffians 
in  a  street  quarrel  never  used  fouler  language  of  one  another  than 
these  men  of  education  applied  to  the  pure-minded  and  magnani- 
mous lady  whose  sole  offense  was  that  she  was  the  wife  of  their 
kind-hearted  king. 

And,  in  addition  to  this  daily  increase  of  their  danger  which 
such  denunciations  could  not  fail  to  augment,  the  royal  family 
were  now  suffering  inconveniences  which  even  those  whose  meas- 
ures had  caused  them  had  never  designed.  They  were  in  the 
most  painful  want  of  money.  The  agitation  of  the  last  two 
years  had  rendered  the  treasury  bankrupt.  The  paper  money, 
which  now  composed  almost  the  whole  circulation  of  the  coun- 
try, was  valueless.  While,  as  it  was  in  this  paper  money  (assig- 
nats,  as  the  notes  were  called,  as  being  professedly  secured  by  as- 
signments on  the  royal  domains,  and  on  the  ecclesiastical  proper- 
ty which  had  been  confiscated),  that  the  king's  civil  list  was  paid, 
at  the  latter  end  of  each  month  it  was  not  uncommon  for  him 
and  the  queen  to  be  absolutely  destitute.  It  was  with  great  re- 

*  The  queen  spoke  plainly  to  her  confidants :  "  M.  de  La  Fayette  will  only 
be  the  Mayor  of  Paris  that  he  may  the  sooner  become  Mayor  of  the  Palace. 
Petion  is  a  Jacobin,  a  republican ;  but  he  is  a  fool,  incapable  of  ever  becom- 
ing the  leader  of  a  party.  He  would  be  a  nullity  as  mayor,  and,  besides,  the 
very  interest  which  he  knows  we  take  in  his  nomination  may  bind  him  to  the 
king." — LAMARTISE'S  Histoire  des  Girondins,  vi.,  p.  22. 


AN  EMBASSY  FROM  TIPPOO  SAHIB.  377 

luctance  that  they  accepted  loans  from  their  loyal  adherents,  be- 
cause they  saw  no  prospect  of  being  able  to  repay  them ;  but  had 
they  not  availed  themselves  of  this  resource,  they  would  at  times 
have  wanted  absolute  necessaries.* 

The  royal  couple  still  kept  their  health,  the  king's  apathy  be- 
ing in  this  respect  as  beneficial  as  the  queen's  courage  :  they  still 
rode  a  great  deal  when  the  weather  was  favorable ;  and  on  one 
occasion,  at  the  beginning  of  1792,  the  queen,  with  her  sister-in- 
law  and  her  daughter,  went  again  to  the  theatre.  The  opera  was 
the  same  which  had  been  performed  at  the  visit  in  October ;  but 
this  time  the  Jacobins  had  not  been  forewarned  so  as  to  pack  the 
house,  and  Madame  du  Gazon's  duet  was  received  with  enthusi- 
asm. Again,  as  she  sung  "Ah,  que  j'aime  ma  maitresse !"  she  bow- 
ed to  the  royal  box,  and  the  audience  cheered.  As  if  in  reply  to 
one  verse,  "  II  faut  les  rendre  heureux,"  "  Oui,  oui !"  with  lively  una- 
nimity, came  from  all  parts  of  the  house,  and  the  singers  were 
compelled  to  repeat  the  duet  four  times.  "  It  is  a  queer  nation 
this  of  ours,"  says  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  in  relating  the  scene  to 
one  of  her  correspondents,  "  but  we  must  allow  that  it  has  very 
charming  moments."f 

A  somewhat  curious  episode  to  divert  their  minds  from  these 
domestic  anxieties  was  presented  by  an  embassy  from  the  brave 
and  intriguing  Sultan  of  Mysore,  the  celebrated  Tippoo  Sahib,  who 
sought  to  engage  Louis  to  lend  him  six  thousand  French  troops, 
with  whose  aid  he  trusted  to  break  down  the  ascendency  which 
England  was  rapidly  establishing  in  India.  Tippoo  backed  his 
request,  in  the  Oriental  fashion,  by  presents,  though  not  such  as, 
in  the  opinion  of  M.  Bertrand,  were  quite  worthy  of  the  giver  or 
of  the  receiver.  To  the  king  he  sent  some  diamonds,  but  they 
were  yellow,  ill-cut,  and  ill-set ;  and  the  rest  of  the  offering  was 
composed  of  a  few  pieces  of  embroidered  silk,  striped  cloth,  and 
cambric:  while  the  queen's  present  consisted  of  nothing  more 
valuable  than  a  few  bottles  of  perfume  of  no  very  exquisite  qual- 
ity, and  a  few  boxes  of  powdered  scents,  pastils,  and  matches. 
The  king  and  queen  gave  nearly  the  whole  present  to  M.  Bertrand 

*  "  Elle  [Madame  d'Ossun,  dame  d'atours  de  la  reine]  m'a  dit,  il  y  a  trois 
semaines,  que  le  roi  et  la  reine  avaicnt  et6  neuf  jours  sans  un  sou." — Let- 
ter of  the  Prince  de  Nassaii-Sitgen  to  the  Russian  Empress  Catherine,  Feuillet  de 
Conches,  iv.,  p.  316 ;  of  also  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  xxi. 

f  Letter  of  the  Princess  to  Madame  de  Bombelles,  Feuillet  de  Conches, 
v.,  p.  267. 


378  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

for  his  grandchildren,  the  queen  only  reserving  a  bottle  of  attar  of 
rose  and  a  couple  of  pieces  of  cambric  ;  and  that  chiefly  to  afford 
a  pretext  for  seeing  M.  Bertrand  once  or  twice,  without  his  recep- 
tion being  imputed  to  a  desire  to  promote  some  Austrian  intrigue ; 
for  the  Jacobins  had  lately  revived  the  clamor  against  Austrian  in- 
fluence with  greater  vehemence  than  ever. 

As  M.  Bertrand  had  grandchildren,  he  could  well  appreciate 
the  pleasure  of  the  queen  at  an  incident  which  closed  one  of  his 
audiences.  While  he  was  thus  receiving  her  commands,  the  little 
dauphin,  "  beautiful  as  an  angel,"  as  the  minister  describes  him, 
was  capering  about  the  room  in  high  delight,  brandishing  a  wood- 
en sword,  a  new  toy  which  had  just  been  given  him.  An  attend- 
ant called  him  to  go  to  supper ;  and  he  bounded  toward  the  door. 
"  How  is  this,  my  boy  ?"  said  Marie  Antoinette,  calling  him  back ; 
"  are  you  going  off  without  making  M.  Bertrand  a  bow  ?"  "  Oh, 
mamma,"  said  the  little  prince,  still  skipping  about,  and  smiling, 
"  that  is  because  I  know  well  that  M.  Bertrand  is  one  of  our 

friends Good-evening,  M.  Bertrand."  "  Is  not  he  a  nice 

child  ?"*  said  the  queen,  after  he  had  left  the  room.  "  He  is  very 
happy  to  be  so  young.  He  does  not  feel  what  we  suffer,  and  his 
gayety  does  us  good."  Alas !  that  which  was  now  perhaps  her 
only  pleasure  —  the  contemplation  of  her  child's  opening  grace 
and  amiability — before  long  became  even  an  addition  to  her  af- 
fliction, as  the  probabilities  increased  that  the  madness  of  the  peo- 
ple and  the  wickedness  of  their  leaders  would  deprive  him  of  the 
inheritance,  to  preserve  which  to  him  was  the  principal  object  of 
all  her  cares  and  exertions. 

But  these  moments  of  gratification  were  becoming  fewer  as 
time  went  on.  Each  month,  each  week  brought  fresh  and  in- 
creasing anxieties  to  engross  all  her  thoughts.  As  the  Girondin 
leaders  began  to  feel  their  strength,  the  votes  of  the  Assembly  be- 
came more  violent.  One  day  it  passed  a  fresh  decree  against  the 
priests,  depriving  all  who  refused  to  take  the  oath  to  the  new 
ecclesiastical  constitution  of  the  stipends  for  which  their  former 
preferments  had  been  commuted,  placing  them  under  strict  su- 
pervision, and  declaring  them  liable  to  instant  banishment  if  they 
should  venture  to  exercise  their  functions  in  private.  Another 
day  it  vented  its  wrath  upon  the  emigrants,  summoning  the  Count 
de  Provence  by  name  to  return  at  once  to  France ;  and,  with  re- 

*  "N'est-il  pas  bien  gentil, mon  enfant?" — Memdres  Particuliers,  p.  235. 


MISCHIEVOUS  CONDUCT  OF  THE  PRIMES.  379 

spect  to  the  rest  of  the  body,  now  very  numerous,  declaring  their 
conduct  in  being  assembled  on  the  frontier  of  the  kingdom  in  a 
state  of  readiness  for  war  in  itself  an  act  of  treason ;  and  con- 
demning to  death  and  confiscation  of  their  estates  all  who  should 
fail  to  return  to  their  native  land  before  a  stated  day. 

But  in  these  decrees  the  advocates  of  violence  had  for  the  mo- 
ment gone  too  far — they  had  outrun  the  feelings  of  the  nation. 
The  emigrants,  indeed,  neither  deserved  nor  found  sympathy  in 
any  quarter.  The  main  body  of  them  was  at  this  time  settled  at 
Coblentz,  where  their  conduct  was  such  that  it  is  hard  to  say 
whether  it  were  more  offensive  to  their  country,  more  injurious  to 
their  king,  or  more  discreditable  to  themselves.  They  could  not 
even  act  in  harmony.  The  king's  two  brothers  established  rival 
courts,  with  a  mistress  at  the  head  of  each.  Madame  de  Balbi 
still  ruled  the  Count  de  Provence ;  Madame  de  Polastron  was  the 
presiding  genius  of  the  coterie  of  the  Count  d'Artois.  The  two 
ladies,  regarding  each  other  with  bitter  jealousy,  agitated  the 
whole  town  with  their  rivalries  and  wranglings,  and  agreed  in 
nothing  but  in  their  endeavors  to  excite  some  foreign  sovereign 
or  other  to  make  war  upon  their  native  land.  It  was  in  vain 
that  Louis  himself  first  entreated  them,  and,  when  he  found  his 
entreaties  were  disregarded,  commanded  his  brothers  to  return. 
They  positively  refused  obedience  to  his  order,  telling  him,  in 
language  which  can  only  be  characterized  as  that  of  studied  in- 
sult, that  he  was  writing  under  coercion ;  that  his  letter  did  not 
express  his  real  views,  and  that  "  their  honor,  their  duty,  even 
their  affection  for  him,  alike  forbade  them  to  obey  him."*  The 
queen  could  not  command,  but  she  wrote  to  them  more  than  one 
letter  of  most  earnest  entreaty,  and,  as  the  princes  founded  part 
of  their  hopes  on  the  co-operation  of  the  Northern  sovereigns, 
she  wrote  also  to  the  empress  and  to  Gustavus,  pressing  both,  and 
especially  the  King  of  Sweden,f  to  restrain  them ;  but  they  were 
too  headstrong  and  full  of  their  own  projects  to  listen  to  her 
entreaties  any  more  than  to  the  king's  commands,  and  did  not 
even  take  the  trouble  to  conceal  their  negotiations  with  foreign 
powers,  nor  their  object,  which  could  be  nothing  but  war. 

It  was  impossible  that  such  conduct  steadily  pursued  by  the 

*  See  two  most  insolent  letters  from  the  Count  de  Provence  and  Count 
d'Artois  to  Louis  XVI.,  Feuillet  de  Conches,  v.,  pp.  260, 261. 
f  Feuillet  de  Conches,  iv.,  p.  291. 


380  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

king's  own  brothers  could  be  any  thing  but  most  pernicious  to 
his  cause.  It  could  not  fail  to  excite  suspicions  of  his  own  good 
faith.  It  supplied  the  Jacobins  with  pretexts  for  putting  fresh 
restraints  on  his  authority ;  and  it  frightened  even  the  Constitu- 
tionalists, since  it  was  plain  that  civil  war  must  ensue,  with,  very 
probably,  the  addition  of  foreign  war  also,  if  these  machinations 
of  the  emigrants  were  not  suppressed. 

Still,  these  sweeping  proscriptions  of  entire  classes  were  not  yet 
to  the  taste  of  the  nation.  Petitions  from  the  country,  and  even 
one  from  the  department  of  the  Seine,  were  presented  to  Louis, 
begging  him  to  refuse  his  assent  to  the  decree  against  the  priests ; 
and  the  feeling  which  they  represented  was  so  strong,  and  the 
reputation  of  some  of  the  petitioners  stood  so  high  for  ability  and 
influence,  that  the  ministers  believed  that  he  could  safely  refuse 
his  sanction  to  both  the  votes.  Even  without  their  advice  he 
would  have  rejected  the  decree  against  the  priests,  as  one  absolute- 
ly incompatible  with  his  reverence  for  religion  and  its  ministers ; 
and  his  conduct  on  this  subject  supplies  one  more  striking  paral- 
lel to  the  history  of  the  great  English  rebellion ;  since  there  can 
hardly  be  a  more  precise  resemblance  between  events  occurring  in 
different  ages  and  different  countries  than  is  afforded  by  the  re- 
sistance made  by  Charles  to  the  last  vote  of  the  London  Parlia- 
ment against  the  bishops,  and  this  resistance  of  Louis  to  the  will 
of  the  Assembly  on  behalf  of  the  priests,  and  by  the  fatal  effect 
which,  in  each  case,  their  conscientious  and  courageous  determina- 
tion had  upon  the  fortunes  of  the  two  sovereigns. 

Louis  therefore  put  his  veto  on  both  the  decrees,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  that  clause  in  the  act  against  the  emigrants  which 
summoned  his  brothers  to  return  to  the  kingdom.  But,  that  no 
one  might  pretend  to  fancy  that  he  either  approved  of  the  con- 
duct of  the  emigrants  or  sympathized  with  their  principles  or  de- 
signs, he  issued  a  circular  letter  to  the  governors  of  the  different 
sea-ports,  in  which  he  remonstrated  most  earnestly  with  the  sail- 
ors, numbers  of  whom,  as  it  was  reported  in  Paris,  were  preparing 
to  follow  their  example.  He  pointed  out  in  it  that  those  who 
thus  deserted  their  country  mistook  their  duty  to  that  country, 
to  him  as  their  king,  and  to  themselves ;  that  the  present  aspect 
of  the  nation,  desirous  to  return  to  order  and  to  submission  to 
the  law,  removed  every  pretext  for  such  conduct.  He  set  before 
them  his  own  example,  and  bid  them  remain  at  their  posts,  as  he 
was  remaining  at  his ;  and,  in  language  more  impressive  than  that 


LETTERS  RESPECTING  THE  EMIGRANTS.  381 

of  command,  he  exhorted  them  not  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  his 
prayers ;  and  at  the  same  time  he  addressed  letters  to  the  electors 
of  Treves  and  Mayence,  and  to  the  other  petty  German  princes 
whose  territories,  bordering  on  the  Rhine,  were  the  principal  re- 
sort of  the  emigrants,  requiring  them  to  cease  to  give  them  shel- 
ter, and  announcing  that  if  they  should  refuse  to  remove  them 
from  their  dominions  he  should  consider  their  refusal  a  sufficient 
ground  for  war ;  while,  to  show  that  he  did  not  intend  this  men- 
ace to  be  a  dead  letter,  he  soon  afterward  announced  to  the  As- 
sembly that  he  had  ordered  a  powerful  army  of  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  men  to  be  moved  toward  the  frontier,  under  the 
command  of  Marshal  Luckner,  Marshal  Rochambeau,  and  General 
La  Fayette,  and  he  invited  the  members  to  vote  a  levy  of  fifty 
thousand  more  men  to  raise  the  force  of  the  nation  to  its  full 
complement. 


382  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Death  of  Leopold. — Murder  of  Gustavus  of  Sweden. — Violence  of  Vergniaud. 
— The  Ministers  resign. — A  Girondin  Ministry  is  appointed. — Character  of 
Dumouriez. — Origin  of  the  Name  Sans-culottes. — Union  of  Different  Parties 
against  the  Queen. — War  is  declared  against  the  Empire. — Operations  in 
the  Netherlands. — Unskillfulness  of  La  Fayette. — The  King  falls  into  a 
State  of  Torpor. —  Fresh  Libels  on  the  Queen. —  Barnave's  Advice. —  Du- 
mouriez has  an  Audience  of  the  Queen. — Dissolution  of  the  Constitutional 
Guard. — Formation  of  a  Camp  near  Paris. — Louis  adheres  to  his  Refusal 
to  assent  to  the  Decree  against  the  Priests. — Dumouriez  resigns  his  Office, 
and  takes  command  of  the  Army. 

WAR  of  some  kind — foreign  war,  civil  war,  or  both  combined 
— had  apparently  become  inevitable ;  and  Marie  Antoinette  de- 
ceived herself  if  she  thought  that  the  armed  congress  of  sover- 
eigns, for  which  she  was  above  all  things  anxious,  could  lead  to 
any  other  result.  In  any  case,  a  congress  must  have  produced 
one  consequence  which  she  deprecated  as  much  as  any  other,  a 
waste  of  time,  while,  as  she  truly  said,  her  enemies  never  wasted 
a  moment.  Nor,  with  the  very  different  views  of  the  policy  to 
be  pursued,  which  the  emperor  and  the  King  of  Prussia  entertain- 
ed (Frederick  being  an  advocate  of  an  armed  intervention  in  the 
affairs  of  France,  which  Leopold  opposed  as  impracticable,  and,  if 
practicable,  impolitic),  was  it  easy  to  see  how  a  congress  could 
have  brought  those  monarchs  to  agree  on  any  united  system  of 
action.  But  all  projects  of  that  kind  necessarily  fell  to  the 
ground  in  consequence  of  the  death  of  the  emperor,  which  took 
place,  after  a  very  short  illness,  on  the  1st  of  March,  1792 ;  and 
before  the  end  of  the  same  month  the  royal  family  lost  another 
warm  friend  in  Gustavus  of  Sweden,  who  was  assassinated  in  the 
very  midst  of  preparations  which  he  confidently  hoped  might  con- 
tribute to  deliver  his  brother  sovereign  from  his  troubles. 

Marie  Antoinette  spoke  truly  when  she  said  that  the  enemies 
of  the  crown  never  lost  time.  The  very  prospect  of  war  increased 
the  divisions  of  the  Assembly,  since  the  Jacobins  were  undisguis- 
edly  averse  to  it.  Not  one  of  their  body  had  any  reputation  for 
skill  in  arms,  so  that  in  the  event  of  war  it  was  evident  that  the 


THE  QUEEN'S  COURAGE.  383 

chief  commands,  both  in  army  and  navy,  must  be  conferred  on 
persons  unconnected  with  them ;  while  the  Girondins,  though,  as 
far  as  was  yet  known,  equally  destitute  of  members  possessed  of 
any  military  ability,  looked  on  war  as  favorable  to  their  designs, 
whatever  might  be  the  issue  of  a  campaign.  They  were  above  all 
things  eager  for  the  destruction  of  the  monarchy,  and  they  reck- 
oned that  if  the  French  army  were  victorious,  its  success  would 
disable  those  who  were  most  willing  and  might  be  most  able  to 
support  the  throne ;  while,  if  the  enemy  should  prevail,  it  would 
be  easy  to  represent  their  triumph  as  the  fruit  of  the  mismanage- 
ment, if  not  of  the  treachery,  of  the  king's  generals  and  ministers ; 
and  the  opposition  of  these  two  parties  was  at  this  time  so  noto- 
rious that  the  queen  thought  it  favorable  to  the  king,  since  each 
would  be  eager  to  preserve  him  as  a  possible  ally  against  its  ad- 
versaries. It  is  for  her  husband's  and  her  child's  safety  that  she 
expresses  anxiety,  never  for  her  own.  With  respect  to  herself 
her  uniform  language  is  that  of  fearlessness.  She  does  not  for  a 
moment  conceal  from  her  correspondents  her  sense  of  the  dangers 
which  surround  her.  She  has  not  only  open  hostility  to  fear,  but 
treachery,  which  is  far  worse ;  and  she  declares  that  "  a  perpet- 
ual imprisonment  in  a  solitary  tower  on  the  sea-shore  would  be  a 
less  cruel  fate  than  that  which  she  daily  endures  from  the  wick- 
edness of  her  enemies  and  the  weakness  of  her  friends.  Every 
thing  menaces  an  inevitable  catastrophe ;  but  she  is  prepared  for 
every  thing.  She  has  learned  from  her  mother  not  to  fear  death. 
That  may  as  well  come  to-day  as  to-morrow.  She  only  fears  for 
her  dear  children,  and  for  those  she  loves ;  and  high  among  those 
whom  she  loves  she  places  her  sister-in-law  Elizabeth,  who  is  al- 
ways an  angel  aiding  her  to  support  her  sorrows,  and  who,  with 
her  poor,  dear  children,  never  quits  her."* 

A  long  continuance  of  sorrows  and  fears,  such  as  had  now  for 
nearly  three  years  pressed  upon  the  writer  of  this  letter,  would 
so  wear  away  and  break  down  ordinary  souls  that,  when  a  crisis 
came,  they  would  be  found  wholly  unequal  to  grapple  with  it; 
and  we  may  therefore  the  better  form  some  idea  of  the  strength 
of  mind  and  almost  superhuman  fortitude  of  this  admirable 
queen,  if,  from  time  to  time,  we  fix  our  attention  on  these  not 
exaggerated  complaints,  for  indeed  the  misfortunes  that  elicited 

*  Letter  to  Madame  de  Polignac,  March  1  7th,  Feuillet  de  Conches,  v.,  p. 
337. 


384  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

them  admit  of  no  exaggeration ;  and  then  remember  that,  after 
so  long  a  period  of  such  uninterrupted  suffering,  her  spirit  was  so 
far  from  being  broken,  that,  as  increasing  dangers  and  horrors 
thickened  around  her,  her  courage  seemed  to  increase  also.  Her 
faithful  attendant,  Madame  de  Campan,  has  remarked  that  her 
troubles  had  not  even  affected  her  temper ;  that  no  one  ever  saw 
her  out  of  humor.  In  every  respect,  to  the  very  last,  she  showed 
herself  superior  to  the  utmost  malice  of  her  enemies. 

The  news  of  the  death  of  Leopold,  whose  son  and  successor, 
Francis,  was  but  three  -  and  -  twenty  years  of  age,  gave  fresh  en- 
couragement to  his  sister's  enemies.  The  intelligence  had  hardly 
reached  Paris  when  Vergniaud  began  to  prepare  the  way  for  a 
fresh  assault  on  the  crown  by  a  denunciation  of  the  ministers, 
while  the  Jacobins  and  Cordeliers  made  an  open  attack  upon  an- 
other club  which  the  Constitutionalists  had  lately  formed  under 
the  name  of  Les  Feuillants,  holding  its  meetings  in  a  convent  of 
the  Monks  of  St.  Bernard,*  and  closed  it  by  main  force.  Though 
several  soldiers,  and  La  Fayette  among  them,  were  members  of 
the  Feuillants,  they  made  no  resistance ;  they  only  applied  to  Pe- 
tion,  as  mayor  of  the  city,  for  protection  ;  and  that  worthy  mag- 
istrate refused  them  aid,  telling  them  that  though  the  law  forbade 
them  to  be  attacked,  the  voice  of  the  people  was  against  them, 
and  to  that  voice  he  was  bound  to  listen. 

The  ministers  fell  before  Vergniaud,  and  the  unhappy  king  had 
no  resource  but  to  choose  their  successors  from  the  party  which 
had  triumphed  over  them.  The  absurd  law  by  which  the  last 
Assembly  had  excluded  its  members  from  office  was  still  in  force, 
so  that  the  orator  himself  and  his  colleagues  could  obtain  no  per- 
sonal promotion  ;  but  they  were  able  to  nominate  the  new  min- 
isters, who,  with  but  one  exception,  were  all  men  equally  devoid 
of  ability  and  reputation,  and  therefore  were  the  better  fitted  to 
be  the  tools  of  those  to  whom  they  owed  their  preferment.  The 
names  of  three  were  Lacoste,  Degraves,  and  Duranton,  of  whom 
nothing  beyond  their  names  is  known.  A  fourth  was  Roland, 
who  was  indeed  known,  though  not  for  any  abilities  of  his  own, 
but  as  the  husband  of  the  woman  who,  as  has  been  already  men- 
tioned, was  the  first  person  in  the  whole  nation  to  raise  the  cry 
for  the  murder  of  the  king  and  queen,  and  whose  fierce  thirst  for 

*  The  'Monks  of  St.  Bernard  were  known  as  Feuillants,  from  Feuillans,  a 
village  in  Languedoc  where  their  principal  convent  was  situated. 


CHARACTER  OF  DUMOURIEZ.  385 

blood  so  predominated  over  every  other  feeling  that  a  few  weeks 
afterward  she  even  began  to  urge  the  assassination  of  the  only 
one  among  her  husband's  colleagues  who  was  possessed  of  the 
slightest  ability,  because  his  views  did  not  altogether  coincide 
with  her  own. 

General  Dumouriez,  whom  she  thus  honored  by  singling  him 
out  for  her  especial  hatred,  was  an  exception  to  his  colleagues  in 
several  points.  He  was  a  man  of  middle  age,  who  enjoyed  a  good 
reputation,  not  only  for  military  skill,  but  also  for  diplomatic  sa- 
gacity and  address,  earned  as  far  back  as  the  latter  years  of  the 
preceding  reign ;  and  he  was  so  far  from  being  originally  imbued 
with  revolutionary  principles  that,  when,  in  the  summer  of  1789, 
a  mutinous  spirit  first  appeared  among  the  troops  in  Paris,  he  vol- 
unteered to  place  his  services  at  the  king's  disposal,  recommend- 
ing measures  of  vigor  and  resolution,  which,  if  they  had  been 
adopted,  might  have  quelled  the  spirit  of  rebellion,  and  have 
changed  the  whole  subsequent  history  of  the  nation.  But  as 
Necker  had  rejected  Mirabeau  a  few  weeks  before,  so  he  also  re- 
jected Dumouriez ;  and  discontent  at  the  treatment  which  he  re- 
ceived from  the  minister,  and  which  seemed  to  prove  that  active 
employment,  of  which  he  was  desirous,  could  only  be  obtained 
through  some  other  influence,  drove  the  general  into  the  ranks  of 
the  Revolutionary  party.  He  now  accepted  the  post  of  foreign 
secretary  in  the  new  ministry ;  but  the  connection  with  the  ene- 
mies of  the  monarchy  was  uncongenial  to  his  taste ;  and,  after  a 
short  time,  the  frequent  intercourse  with  Louis,  which  was  the 
necessary  consequence  of  his  appointment,  and  the  conviction  of 
the  king's  perfect  honesty  and  patriotism  which  this  intercourse 
forced  upon  him,  revived  his  old  feelings  of  loyalty,  and,  so  long 
as  he  remained  in  office,  he  honestly  endeavored  to  avert  the  evils 
which  he  foresaw,  and  to  give  the  advice  and  to  support  the  poli- 
cy by  which,  in  his  honest  belief,  it  was  alone  possible  for  Louis 
to  preserve  his  authority. 

Dumouriez  was  a  gentleman  in  birth  and  manners ;  but  his  col- 
leagues had  so  little  of  either  the  habits  or  appearance  of  decent 
society  that  the  attendants  on  the  royal  family  gave  them  the 
name  of  the  Sans-culottes ;  and  this  name,  meant  originally  to 
describe  the  absence  of  the  ordinary  court  dress,  without  which 
no  previous  ministers  had  ever  ventured  to  appear  in  the  pres- 
ence of  royalty,  was  presently  adopted  as  a  distinctive  title 
by  the  whole  body  of  the  extreme  revolutionists,  who  knew 

25 


386  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

the  value  of  a  name  under  which  to  bind  their  followers  to- 
gether.* 

The  attacks  on  the  ministry  were  accompanied  with  more  di- 
rect attacks  on  the  king  and  queen  themselves  than  had  ever  been 
ventured  on  in  the  former  Assembly.  By  this  time  the  system  of 
espial  and  treachery  by  which  they  were  surrounded  had  become 
so  systematic  that  they  could  not  even  send  a  messenger  to  their 
nephew,  the  emperor,  except  under  a  feigned  name  ;f  and  the  Bar- 
on de  Breteuil,  who  announced  his  mission  to  Francis,  reported  to 
him  at  the  same  time  that  the  chiefs  of  the  Assembly  were  pro- 
posing to  pass  votes  suspending  the  "  king  from  his  functions,  and 
to  separate  the  queen  from  him  on  the  ground  that  an  impeach- 
ment was  to  be  presented  against  both,  as  having  solicited  the  late 
emperor  to  form  a  confederacy  among  the  great  powers  of  Eu- 
rope in  favor  of  the  royal  prerogative."  The  queen  was,  in  fact, 
now,  as  always,  more  the  object  of  their  hatred  than  her  husband, 
and  toward  the  end  of  March  a  reconciliation  of  all  her  enemies 
took  place,  that  the  attack  upon  her  might  be  combined  with  a 
strength  that  should  insure  its  success.  The  Marquis  de  Condor- 
cet,  a  man  of  some  eminence  in  philosophy,  as  the  word  had  been 
understood  since  the  reign  of  the  Encyclopedists,  and  closely  con- 
nected with  the  Girondins,  though  not  formally  enrolled  in  their 
party,  gave  a  supper,  at  which  the  Due  d'Orleans  formally  recon- 
ciled himself  to  La  Fayette ;  and  both,  in  company  with  Brissot 
and  the  Abbe  Sieyes,  who  of  late  had  scarcely  been  heard  of, 
drew  up  an  indictment  against  the  queen.J  Their  malignity 
even  went  the  length  of  resolving  to  separate  the  dauphin  from 
his  mother,  on  the  plea  of  providing  for  his  education ;  but 
the  means  which  the  Girondins  took  to  secure  their  triumph 
for  the  moment  defeated  them.  La  Fayette  did  not  keep  the 
secret.  One  of  his  friends  gave  information  to  the  king  of  the 
plot  that  was  in  contemplation,  and  the  next  day  the  Constitu- 
tionalists mustered  in  the  Assembly  in  such  strength  that  neither 

*  Lamartine,  "Histoire  des  Girondins,"  xiii.,  p.  18. 

f  The  messenger  was  M.  Goguelat :  he  took  the  name  of  M.  Daumartin,  and 
adhered  to  the  cause  of  his  sovereigns  to  the  last  moment  of  their  lives. 

\  Letter  of  the  Count  de  Fersen,  who  was  at  Brussels,  to  Gustavus  (who, 
however,  was  dead  before  it  could  reach  him),  dated  March  24th,  1792.  In 
many  respects  the  information  De  Fersen  sends  to  his  king  tallies  precisely 
with  that  sent  by  Breteuil  to  the  emperor ;  he  only  adds  a  few  circumstances 
which  had  not  reached  the  baron. 


A  DECLARATION  OF  WAR.  387 

Girondins  nor  Jacobins  dared  bring  forward  the  infamous  pro- 
posal. 

But  Louis  and  Marie  Antoinette  reasonably  regarded  the  attack 
on  them  as  only  postponed,  not  as  defeated  or  abandoned.  They 
began  to  prepare  for  the  worst.  They  burned  most  of  their  pa- 
pers, and  removed  into  the  custody  of  friends  whom  they  could 
trust  those  which  they  regarded  as  too  valuable  to  destroy ;  and 
at  the  same  time  they  sent  notice  to  their  partisans  to  cease  writ- 
ing to  them.  They  could  neither  venture  to  send  nor  to  receive 
letters.  They  believed  that  at  this  time  the  plan  of  their  enemies 
was  to  terrify  them  into  repeating  their  attempt  to  escape ;  an  at- 
tempt of  which  the  espial  and  treachery  with  which  they  were  sur- 
rounded would  have  insured  the  failure,  but  which  would  have  giv- 
en the  Jacobins  a  pretext  for  their  trial  and  condemnation.  But 
this  scheme  they  could  themselves  defeat  by  remaining  at  their 
posts.  Patience  and  courage  were  their  only  possible  defense,  and 
with  those  qualities  they  were  richly  endowed. 

A  vital  difference  of  principle  distinguished  the  old  from  the 
new  ministry :  the  former  had  wished  to  preserve,  the  majority  of 
the  latter  were  resolved  to  destroy,  the  throne ;  and  the  means  by 
which  each  sought  to  attain  its  end  were  as  diametrically  opposite 
as  the  ends  themselves.  Bertrand  and  De  Lessart,  the  ministers 
who,  in  the  late  administration,  had  enjoyed  most  of  the  king  and 
queen's  confidence,  had  been  studious  to  preserve  peace,  believing 
that  policy  to  be  absolutely  essential  for  the  safety  of  Louis  him- 
self. Because  they  entertained  the  same  opinion,  the  new  minis- 
ters were  eager  for  war ;  and,  unhappily,  Dumouriez,  in  spite  of 
his  desire  to  uphold  the  throne,  was  animated  by  the  same  feeling. 
His  own  talents  and  tastes  were  warlike,  and  his  office  enabled  him 
to  gratify  them  in  this  instance.  For  the  conciliatory  tone  which 
De  Lessart  had  employed  toward  the  Imperial  Government,  he 
now  substituted  a  language  not  only  imperious,  but  menacing. 
Prince  Kaunitz,  who  still  presided  over  the  administration  at  Vi- 
enna, attached  though  he  was  to  the  system  of  policy  which  he 
had  inaugurated  under  Maria  Teresa,  could  not  avoid  replying  in 
a  similar  strain,  until  at  last,  on  the  20th  of  April,  Louis,  sorely 
against  his  will,  was  compelled  to  announce  to  the  Assembly  that 
all  his  efforts  for  the  preservation  of  peace  had  failed,  and  to  pro- 
pose an  instant  declaration  of  war. 

The  declaration  was  voted  with  enthusiasm ;  but  for  some  time 
it  brought  nothing  but  disaster.  The  campaign  was  opened  in  the 


388  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

Netherlands,  where  the  Austrians,  taken  by  surprise,  were  so  weak 
in  numbers  that  it  seemed  certain  that  they  would  be  driven  from 
the  country  without  difficulty  or  delay.  Marshal  Beaulieu,  their 
commander-in-chief,  had  scarcely  twenty  thousand  men,  while  the 
Count  de  Narbonne  had  left  the  French  army  in  so  good  a  condi- 
tion that  Degraves,  his  successor,  was  able  to  send  a  hundred  and 
thirty  thousand  men  against  him ;  and  Dumouriez  furnished  him 
with  a  plan  for  an  invasion  of  the  Netherlands,  which,  if  proper- 
ly carried  out,  would  have  made  the  French  masters  of  the  whole 
country  in  a  few  days.  But  the  largest  division  of  the  army,  to 
which  the  execution  of  the  most  important  portions  of  the  intend- 
ed operations  was  intrusted,  had  been  placed  under  the  command 
of  La  Fayette,  who  proved  equally  devoid  of  resolution  and  of  skill. 
Some  of  his  regiments  showed  a  disorderly  and  insubordinate  tem- 
per. One  battalion  first  mutinied  and  murdered  some  of  its  offi- 
cers, and  then  disgraced  itself  by  cowardice  in  the  field.  Another 
displayed  an  almost  equal  want  of  courage ;  and  La  Fayette,  dis- 
heartened and  perplexed,  though  the  number  of  his  troops  still 
more  than,  doubled  those  opposed  to  him,  retreated  into  France, 
and  remained  there  in  a  state  of  complete  inactivity. 

But,  as  has  been  said  before,  disaster  was  almost  as  favorable 
to  the  political  views  of  the  Girondins  as  success,  while  it  added 
to  the  dangers  of  the  sovereigns  by  encouraging  the  Jacobins,  who 
were  elated  at  the  failure  of  a  general  so  hateful  to  them  as  La 
Fayette.  They  now  adopted  a  party  emblem,  a  red  cap ;  and  the 
Due  d'Orleans  and  his  son,  the  Due  de  Chartres,*  assumed  it,  and 
with  studied  insult  paraded  in  it  up  and  down  the  gardens  of  the 
palace,  under  the  queen's  windows ;  and  if  the  two  factions  did 
not  formally  coalesce,  they  both  proceeded  with  greater  boldness 
than  ever  toward  their  desired  object,  not  greatly  differing  as  to 
the  means  by  which  it  was  to  be  attained. 

The  palace  was  now  indeed  a  scene  of  misery.  The  king's  ap- 
athy was  degenerating  into  despair.  At  one  time  he  was  so  ut- 
terly prostrated  that  he  remained  for  ten  days  absolutely  silent, 
never  uttering  a  word  except  to  name  his  throws  when  playing 
at  backgammon  with  Elizabeth.  At  last  the  queen  roused  him 
from  his  torpor,  throwing  herself  at  his  feet,  and  mingling  caress- 
es with  her  expostulations ;  entreating  him  to  remember  what  he 

*  Afterward  Louis  Philippe,  King  of  the  French,  who  was  himself  driven 
from  the  throne  by  insurrection  above  half  a  century  afterward. 


FRESH  LIBELS. 


389 


owed  to  his  family,  and  reminding  him  that,  if  they  must  perish, 
it  was  better  at  least  to  perish  with  honor,  and  be  king  to  the 
last,  than  to  wait  passively  till  assassins  should  come  and  murder 
them  in  their  own  rooms.  She  herself  was  in  a  condition  in 
which  nothing  but  her  indomitable  courage  prevented  her  from 
utterly  breaking  down.  Sleep  had  deserted  her.  By  day  she 
rarely  ventured  out-of-doors.  Riding  she  had  given  up,  and  she 
feared  to  walk  in  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries,  even  in  the  little 
portion  marked  off  for  the  dauphin's  playground,  lest  she  should 
expose  herself  to  the  coarse  insults  which  the  basest  of  hirelings 
were  ever  on  the  watch  to  offer  her.*  She  could  not  even  vent- 
ure to  go  openly  to  mass  at  Easter,  but  was  forced  to  arrange  for 
one  of  her  chaplains  to  perform  the  service  for  her  before  day- 
light. Balked  of  their  wish  to  offer  her  personal  insults,  her  en- 
emies redoubled  their  diligence  in  inventing  and  spreading  libels. 
The  demagogues  of  the  Palais  Royal  revived  the  stories  of  her 
subservience  to  the  interests  of  Austria,  and  even  sent  letters 
forged  in  her  name  to  different  members  of  the  Assembly,  in- 
viting them  to  private  conferences  with  her  in  the  apartments  of 
•Madame  de  Lamballe.  But  she  treated  all  such  attacks  with 
lofty  disdain,  and  was  even  greatly  annoyed  when  she  learned 
that  the  chief  of  the  police,  with  the  king's  sanction,  had  bought 
up  a  life  of  Madame  La  Mothe,  in  which  that  infamous  woman 
pretended  to  give  a  true  account  of  the  affair  of  her  necklace,  and 
had  had  it  burned  in  the  manufactory  of  Sevres.  She  thought, 
with  some  reason,  that  to  take  a  step  which  seemed  to  show  a 
dread  of  such  attacks  was  the  surest  way  to  encourage  more  of 
them,  and  that  apparent  indifference  to  them  was  the  only  line  of 
action  consistent  with  her  innocence  or  with  her  dignity. 

The  increasing  dangers  of  her  position  moved  the  pity  of  some 
who  had  once  been  her  enemies,  and  sharpened  their  desire  to 
serve  her.  Barnave,  who  probably  overrated  his  present  influ- 
ence,! in  many  letters  pressed  his  advice  upon  her;  of  which 
the  substance  was  that  she  should  lay  aside  her  distrust  of  the 
Constitutionalist  party,  and,  with  the  king,  throw  herself  wholly 
on  the  Constitution,  to  which  the  nation  was  profoundly  attached. 
He  even  admitted  that  it  was  not  without  defects ;  but  held  out  a 
hope  that,  with  the  aid  of  the  Royalists,  he  and  his  friends  might 
be  able  to  amend  them,  and  in  time  to  re-invest  the  throne  with 


*  Madame  de  Gampan,  ch.  xx. 


f  A-'/.,  ch.  \i x. 


390  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

all  necessary  splendor.  And  the  queen  was  so  touched  by  his 
evident  earnestness  that  she  granted  him  an  audience,  and  assured 
him  of  her  esteem  and  confidence.  Barnave  was  partly  correct 
in  his  judgment,  but  he  overlooked  one  all-essential  circumstance. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  he  spoke  truly  when  he  declared  that  the 
nation  in  general  was  attached  to  the  Constitution ;  but  he  failed 
to  give  sufficient  weight  to  the  consideration  that  the  Jacobins 
and  Girondins  were  agreed  in  seeking  to  overthrow  it,  and  that 
for  that  object  they  were  acting  with  a  concert  and  an  energy  to 
which  he  and  his  party  were  strangers. 

Dumouriez  too  was  equally  earnest  in  his  desire  to  serve  the 
king  and  her,  with  far  greater  power  to  be  useful  than  Barnave. 
He  too  was  admitted  to  an  audience,  of  which  he  has  left  us  an 
account  which,  while  it  shows  both  his  notions  of  the  state  of 
the  country  and  of  the  rival  parties,  and  also  his  own  sincerity, 
is  no  less  characteristic  of  the  queen  herself.  Admitted  to  her 
presence,  he  found  her,  as  he  describes  the  interview,  looking  very 
red,  walking  up  and  down  the  room  with  impetuous  strides,  in 
an  agitation  which  presaged  a  stormy  discussion.  The  different 
events  which  had  taken  place  since  the  king  in  the  preceding 
autumn  had  ratified  the  Constitution,  the  furious  language  held 
in,  and  the  violent  measures  carried  by,  the  Assembly,  had  evi- 
dently changed  her  belief  in  the  possibility  of  attempting,  even 
for  a  short  time,  to  carry  on  the  Government  under  the  conditions 
imposed  by  that  act.  She  came  toward  him  with  an  air  which 
was  at  once  majestic  and  yet  showed  irritation,  and  said : 

"  You,  sir,  are  all-powerful  at  this  moment ;  but  it  is  only  by  the 
favor  of  the  people,  which  soon  breaks  its  idols  to  pieces.  Your 
existence  depends  on  your  conduct.  You  are  said  to  have  great 
talents.  You  must  see  that  neither  the  king  nor  I  can  endure  all 
these  novelties  nor  the  Constitution.  I  tell  you  this  frankly.  Now 
choose  your  side." 

To  this  fervid  apostrophe  Dumouriez  replied  in  a  tone  which 
he  intended  to  combine  a  sorrowful  tenderness  with  loyal  re- 
spect : 

"  Madame,"  said  he,  "  I  am  overwhelmed  with  the  painful  con- 
fidence which  your  majesty  has  reposed  in  me.  I  will  not  be- 
tray it ;  but  I  am  placed  between  the  king  and  the  nation,  and  I 
belong  to  my  country.  Permit  me  to  represent  to  you  that  the 
safety  of  the  king,  of  yourself,  and  of  your  august  children  is 
bound  up  with  the  Constitution,  as  well  as  is  the  re-establishment 


DUMOURIEZ  AND  THE  QUEEN.  391 

of  the  king's  legitimate  authority.  You  are  both  surrounded  with 
enemies  who  are  sacrificing  you  to  their  own  interests." 

The  unfortunate  queen,  shocked  as  well  as  surprised  at  this  op- 
position to  her  views,  replied,  raising  her  voice, 

"  That  will  not  last ;  take  care  of  yourself." 

"  Madame,"  replied  he,  in  his  turn,  "  I  am  more  than  fifty  years 
old.  My  life  has  been  passed  in  countless  dangers,  and  when  I 
took  office  I  reflected  deeply  that  its  responsibility  was  not  the 
greatest  of  its  perils." 

"  This  was  alone  wanting,"  cried  out  the  queen,  with  an  accent 
of  indignant  grief,  and  as  if  astonished  herself  at  her  own  vehe- 
mence. "  This  alone  was  wanting  to  calumniate  me !  You  seem 
to  suppose  that  I  am  capable  of  causing  you  to  be  assassinated !" 
and  she  burst  into  tears. 

Dumouriez  was  as  agitated  as  she  was.  "  God  forbid,"  he  re- 
plied, "  that  I  should  do  you  such  an  injustice !"  And  he  added 
some  flattering  expressions  of  attachment,  such  as  he  thought  cal- 
culated to  soothe  a  mind  so  proud,  yet  so  crushed.  And  present- 
ly she  calmed  herself,  and  came  up  to  him,  putting  her  hand  on 
his  arm  ;  and  he  resumed :  "  Believe  me,  madame,  I  have  no  ob- 
ject in  deceiving  you ;  I  abhor  anarchy  and  crime  as  much  as  you 
do.  Believe  me,  I  have  experience  ;  I  am  better  placed  than  your 
majesty  for  judging  of  events.  This  is  not  a  short-lived  popular 
movement,  as  you  seem  to  think.  It  is  the  almost  unanimous  in- 
surrection of  a  great  nation  against  inveterate  abuses.  There  are 
great  factions  which  fan  this  flame.  In  all  factions  there  are 
many  scoundrels  and  many  madmen.  In  the  Revolution  I  see 
nothing  but  the  king  and  the  entire  nation.  Every  thing  which 
tends  to  separate  them  tends  to  their  mutual  ruin  :  I  am  laboring 
as  much  as  I  can  to  reunite  them.  It  is  for  you  to  help  me.  If 
I  am  an  obstacle  to  your  designs,  and  if  you  persist  in  thinking 
so,  tell  me  so,  and  I  will  at  once  send  in  my  resignation  to  the 
king,  and  will  retire  into  a  corner  to  grieve  over  the  fate  of  my 
country  and  of  you." 

And  he  concludes  his  narrative  by  expressing  his  belief  that  he 
had  regained  the  queen's  confidence  by  his  frank  explanation  of 
his  views,  while  he  himself  in  his  turn  was  evidently  fascinated 
by  the  affability  with  which,  after  a  brief  further  conversation, 
she  dismissed  him.*  Though,  if  we  may  trust  Madame  de  Cam- 

*  "  Vie  de  Dumouriez,"  ii.,  p.  163,  quoted  by  Marquis  de  Ferrieres,  Feuillet 
de  Conches,  and  several  other  writers. 


392  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

pan,  Marie  Antoinette  was  not  as  satisfied  as  she  had  seemed  to 
be,  but  declared  that  it  was  not  possible  for  her  to  place  confi- 
dence in  his  protestations  when  she  recollected  his  former  lan- 
guage and  acts,  and  the  party  with  which  he  was  even  now  acting. 

Madame  de  Campan  probably  gives  a  more  correct  report  of  the 
queen's  feelings  than  the  general  himself,  whom  the  conscious- 
ness of  his  own  integrity  of  purpose  very  probably  misled  into 
believing  that  he  had  convinced  her  of  it.  But,  though,  if  Marie 
Antoinette  did  listen  to  his  professions  and  advice  with  some  de- 
gree of  mistrust,  she  undoubtedly  did  him  less  than  justice  :  she 
can  hardly  be  blamed  for  indulging  such  a  feeling,  when  it  is  re- 
membered in  what  an  atmosphere  of  treachery  she  had  lived  for 
the  last  three  years.  Undoubtedly  Dumouriez,  though  not  a  thor- 
ough-going Royalist  like  M.  Bertrand,  was  not  only  in  intention 
an  honest  and  friendly  counselor,  but  was  by  far  the  ablest  ad- 
viser who  had  had  access  to  her  since  the  death  of  Mirabeau,  and 
in  one  respect  was  a  more  judicious  and  trustworthy  adviser  than 
even  that  brilliant  and  fertile  statesman ;  since  he  did  not  fall  into 
the  error  of  miscalculating  what  was  practicable,  or  of  overrating 
his  own  influence  with  the  Assembly  or  the  nation. 

Yet,  had  the  king  and  queen  adopted  his  views  ever  so  unre- 
servedly, it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  they  would  have  avert- 
ed or  even  deferred  the  fate  which  awaited  them.  The  leaders  of 
the  two  parties,  before  whose  union  they  fell,  had  as  little  attach- 
ment to  the  new  Constitution  as  the  queen.  The  moment  that 
they  obtained  the  undisputed  ascendency,  they  trampled  it  under- 
foot in  every  one  of  its  provisions.  Constitution  or  no  Constitu- 
tion, they  were  determined  to  overthrow  the  throne  and  to  de- 
stroy those  to  whom  it  belonged ;  and  to  men  animated  with  such 
a  resolution  it  signified  little  what  pretext  might  be  afforded  them 
by  any  actions  of  their  destined  victims.  The  wolf  never  yet 
wanted  a  plea  for  devouring  the  lamb. 

One  of  the  first  fruits  of  the  union  between  the  Jacobins  and 
the  Girondins  was  the  preparation  of  an  insurrection.  The  As- 
sembly did  not  move  fast  enough  for  them.  It  might  be  still 
useful  as  an  auxiliary,  but  the  lead  in  the  movement  the  clubs  as- 
sumed to  themselves.  Their  first  care  was  to  deprive  the  king  of 
all  means  of  resistance,  and  with  this  view  to  get  rid  of  the  Con- 
stitutional Guard,  the  commander  of  which  was  still  the  gallant 
Duke  de  Brissac,  a  noble-minded  and  faithful  adherent  of  Louis 
amidst  all  his  distresses.  But  it  was  not  easy  to  find  any  ground 


DISSOLUTION  OF  THE  GUARD.  393 

for  disbanding  a  force  which  was  too  small  to  be  formidable  to 
any  but  traitors ;  and  the  pretext  which  was  put  forward  was  so 
preposterous  that  it  could  excite  no  feeling  but  that  of  amuse- 
ment, if  the  object  aimed  at  were  not  too  serious  and  shocking 
for  laughter.  At  Easter  the  dauphin  had  presented  the  mess  of 
the  regiment  with  a  cake,  one  of  the  ornaments  of  which  was  a 
small  white  flag  taken  from  among  his  own  toys.  Petion  now 
issued  orders  to  search  the  officers'  quarters  for  this  child's  flag, 
and,  when  it  was  found,  one  of  the  Jacobin  members  was  not 
ashamed  to  produce  it  to  the  Assembly  as  a  proof  that  the  court 
was  meditating  a  counter-revolution  and  a  massacre  of  the  patri- 
ots, and  to  propose  the  instant  dissolution  of  the  Guard.  The 
motion  was  carried,  though  some  of  the  Constitutionalist  party 
had  the  honesty  to  oppose  it,  as  one  which  could  have  only  regi- 
cide for  its  object ;  and  Louis  did  not  dare  refuse  it  his  assent. 

He  was  now  wholly  disarmed.  To  render  his  defeat  in  the  im- 
pending struggle  more  certain,  one  of  the  ministers,  Servan,  him- 
self proposed  a  levy  of  twenty  thousand  fresh  soldiers,  to  be  sta- 
tioned permanently  at  Paris,  and  this  motion  also  was  passed. 
Again  Louis  could  not  venture  to  withhold  his  sanction  from  the 
bill,  though  he  comforted  himself  by  dismissing  the  mover,  with 
two  of  his  colleagues,  Roland  and  Claviere.  Roland's  dismissal 
had  indeed  become  indispensable,  since,  on  the  preceding  day,  he 
had  had  the  audacity  to  write  him  an  insolent  letter,  composed 
by  his  ferocious  wife,  which  in  express  terms  threatened  him  with 
death  "  if  he  did  not  give  satisfaction  to  the  Revolution."*  Nor 
was  Madame  Roland  inclined  to  be  satisfied  with  the  murder  of 
the  king  and  queen.  As  has  been  already  mentioned,  she  at  the 
same  time  urged  upon  her  submissive  husband  the  assassination 
of  Dumouriez,  who,  having  intelligence  of  her  enmity,  began  in 
self-defense  to  connect  himself  with  the  Jacobins.  On  the  dis- 
missal of  Roland  and  the  others,  he  had  exchanged  the  foreign 
port-folio  for  that  of  war,  and  was  practically  the  prime  minister, 
being  in  fact  the  only  one  whom  Louis  admitted  to  any  degree  of 
confidence ;  but  this  arrangement  lasted  less  than  a  single  week. 
Louis  had  yielded  to  and  adopted  his  advice  on  every  point  but 
one.  He  had  sanctioned  the  dismissal  of  the  Constitutional 


*  Even  Lamartine  condemns  the  letter,  the  greater  part  of  which  he  in- 
serts in  his  history  as  one  in  which  "  the  threat  is  no  less  evident  than  the 
treachery." — Hiatoire  dea  Girondins,  xiii.,  p.  16. 


394  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

Guard,  and  the  formation  of  the  new  body  of  troops,  which,  no 
one  doubted,  was  intended  to  be  used  against  himself;  but  he 
was  as  firmly  convinced  as  ever  that  his  religious  duty  bound  him 
to  refuse  his  assent  to  the  decree  against  the  priests,  and  he  re- 
fused to  do  a  violence  to  his  conscience,  and  to  commit  what  he 
regarded  as  a  sin.  But  this  very  decree  was  the  one  which  Du- 
mouriez  regarded  as  the  most  dangerous  one  for  him  to  reject,  as 
being  that  which  the  Assembly  was  most  firmly  resolved  to  make 
law ;  and,  as  his  most  vigorous  remonstrances  failed  to  shake  the 
king's  resolution  on  this  point,  he  resigned  his  post  as  a  minister, 
and  repaired  to  the  Flemish  frontier  to  take  the  command  of  the 
army,  which  greatly  needed  an  able  leader. 


MONSIEUR  AND  MADAME  VETO.  395 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

The  Insurrection  of  June  20th. 

BOTH  Jacobins  and  Girondins  felt  that  the  departure  of  Du- 
mouriez  from  Paris  had  removed  a  formidable  obstacle  from  their 
path,  and  they  at  once  began  to  hurry  forward  the  preparations 
for  their  meditated  insurrection.  The  general  gave  in  his  resig- 
nation on  the  15th  of  June,  and  the  20th  was  fixed  for  an  attack 
on  the  palace,  by  which  its  contrivers  designed  to  effect  the  over- 
throw of  the  throne,  if  not  the  destruction  of  the  entire  royal 
family.  It  was  organized  with  unusual  deliberation.  The  meet- 
ings of  conspirators  were  attended  not  only  by  the  Girondin  lead- 
ers, to  whom  Madame  Koland  had  recently  added  a  new  recruit, 
a  young  barrister  from  the  South,  named  Barbaroux,  remarkable 
for  his  personal  beauty,  and,  as  was  soon  seen,  for  a  pitiless  hard- 
ness of  heart,  and  energetic  delight  in  deeds  of  cruelty  that,  even 
in  that  blood-thirsty  company,  was  equaled  by  few;  with  them 
met  all  those  as  yet  most  notorious  for  ferocity — Danton  and  Le- 
gendre,  the  founders  of  the  Cordeliers;  Marat,  daily,  in  his  ob- 
scene and  blasphemous  newspaper,  clamoring  for  wholesale  blood- 
shed ;  Santerre,  odious  as  the  sanguinary  leader  of  the  very  first 
outbreaks  of  the  Revolution  ;  Rotondo,  already,  as  we  have  seen, 
detected  in  attempting  to  assassinate  the  queen ;  and  Petion,  who 
thus  repaid  her  preference  of  him  to  La  Fayette,  which  had  placed 
him  in  the  mayoralty,  whose  duties  he  was  now  betraying. 
Some,  too,  bore  a  part  in  the  foul  conspiracy  as  partisans  of  the 
Due  d'Orleans,  who  were  generally  understood  to  have  instruc- 
tions to  be  lavish  of  their  master's  gold,  the  vile  prince  hoping 
that  the  result  of  the  outbreak  would  be  the  assassination  of  his 
cousin,  and  his  own  elevation  to  the  vacant  throne.  In  their 
speeches  they  gave  Louis  the  name  of  Monsieur  Veto,  in  allusion 
to  the  still  legal  exercise  of  his  prerogative,  by  which  he  had 
sought  to  protect  the  priests ;  while  the  queen  was  called  Madame 
Veto,  though  in  fact  she  had  finally  joined  Dumouriez  in  urging 
her  husband  to  give  his  royal  assent  to  the  decree  against  them, 
not,  as  thinking  it  on  any  pretense  justifiable,  but  as  believing, 


396  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

with  the  general,  in  the  impossibility  of  maintaining  its  rejection. 
Yet  nothing  could  more  completely  prove  the  absolute  innocence 
and  unimpeachable  good  faith  of  both  king  and  queen  than  the 
act  of  his  enemies  in  giving  them  this  nickname ;  so  clear  an  evi- 
dence was  it  that  they  could  allege  nothing  more  odious  against 
them  than  the  possession  by  Louis,  in  a  most  modified  degree, 
of  a  prerogative  which,  without  any  modification  at  all,  has  in 
every  country  been  at  all  times  regarded  as  indispensable  to,  and 
inseparable  from,  royalty ;  and  the  exercise  of  it  for  the  defense 
of  a  body  of  men  of  whom  none  could  deny  the  entire  harm- 
lessness. 

On  the  night  of  the  19th  the  appointed  leaders  of  the  different 
bands  into  which  the  insurgents  were  to  be  divided  separated; 
the  watch-word,  "  Destruction  to  the  palace,"  was  given  out ;  and 
all  Paris  waited  in  anxious  terror  for  the  events  of  the  morrow. 
Louis  was  as  well  aware  as  any  of  the  citizens  of  the  intended 
attack,  and  prepared  for  it  as  for  death.  On  the  afternoon  of 
the  19th  he  wrote  to  his  confessor  to  desire  him  to  come  to  him 
at  once.  "  He  had  never,"  he  said,  "  had  such  need  of  his  conso- 
lations. He  had  done  with  this  world,  and  his  thoughts  were 
now  fixed  on  Heaven  alone.  Great  calamities  were  announced 
for  the  morrow ;  but  he  felt  that  he  had  courage  to  meet  them." 
And  after  the  holy  man  had  left  him,  as  he  gazed  on  the  setting 
sun  he  once  more  gave  utterance  to  his  forebodings.  "  Who  can 
tell,"  said  he,  "whether  it  be  not  the  last  that  I  shall  ever  see?" 
The  Royalists  felt  his  danger  almost  as  keenly  as  himself,  but 
were  powerless  to  prevent  it  by  any  means  of  their  own.  The 
Duke  de  Liancourt,  who  had  some  title  to  be  listened  to  by  the 
Revolutionary  party,  since  no  one  had  been  more  zealous  in  pro- 
moting the  most  violent  measures  of  the  first  Assembly,  pressed 
earnestly  on  Petion  that  his  duty  as  mayor  bound  him  to  call  out 
the  National  Guards,  and  so  prevent  the  intended  outbreak,  but 
was  answered  by  sarcasms  and  insults ;  while  Vergniaud,  from  the 
tribune  of  the  Assembly  itself,  dared  to  deride  all  who  apprehend- 
ed danger. 

On  the  morning  of  the  20th,  daylight  had  scarcely  dawned 
when  twenty  thousand  men,  the  greater  part  of  whom  were  arm- 
ed with  some  weapon  or  other — muskets,  pikes,  hatchets,  crow- 
bars, and  even  spits  from  the  cook-shops  forming  part  of  their 
equipment — assembled  on  the  place  where  the  Bastile  had  stood. 
Santerre  was  already  there  on  horseback  as  their  appointed  lead- 


ADVANCE  OF  THE  BROTHERS.  397 

er ;  and,  when  all  were  collected  and  marshaled  in  three  divisions, 
they  began  their  march.  One  division  had  for  its  chief  the  Mar- 
quis de  St.  Huruge,  an  intimate  friend  and  adherent  of  the  Due 
d'Orleans ;  at  the  head  of  another,  a  woman  of  notorious  infamy, 
known  as  La  Belle  Liegeoise,  clad  in  male  attire,  rode  astride 
upon  a  cannon ;  while,  as  it  advanced,  the  crowd  was  every  mo- 
ment swelled  by  vast  bodies  of  recruits,  among  whom  were  num- 
bers of  women,  whose  imprecations  in  ferocity  and  foulness  sur- 
passed even  the  foulest  threats  of  the  men. 

The  ostensible  object  of  the  procession  was  to  present  peti- 
tions to  the  king  and  the  Assembly  on  the  dismissal  of  Roland  and 
his  colleagues  from  the  administration,  and  on  the  refusal  of  the 
royal  assent  to  the  decree  against  the  priests.  The  real  design  of 
those  who  had  organized  it  was  more  truthfully  shown  by  the 
banners  and  emblems  borne  aloft  in  the  ranks.  "Beware  the 
Lamp,"*  was  the  inscription  on  one.  "Death  to  Veto  and  his 
wife,"  was  read  upon  another.  A  gang  of  butchers  carried  a 
calf's  heart  on  the  point  of  a  pike,  with  "The  Heart  of  an  Aris- 
tocrat" for  a  motto.  A  band  of  crossing  -  sweepers,  or  of  men 
who  professed  to  be  such,  though  the  fineness  of  their  linen  was 
inconsistent  with  the  rags  which  were  their  outward  garments, 
had  for  their  standard  a  pair  of  ragged  breeches,  with  the  inscrip- 
tion, "  Tremble,  tyrants ;  here  are  the  Sans-culottes."  One  gang 
of  ruffians  carried  a  model  of  a  guillotine.  Another  bore  aloft  a 
miniature  gallows  with  an  effigy  of  the  queen  herself  hanging 
from  it.  So  great  was  the  crowd  that  it  was  nearly  three  in  the 
afternoon  before  the  head  of  it  reached  the  Assembly,  where  its 
approach  had  raised  a  debate  on  the  propriety  of  receiving  any 
petition  at  all  which  was  to  be  presented  in  so  menacing  a  guise ; 
M.  Roederer,  the  procurator-syndic,  or  chief  legal  officer  of  the 
department  of  Paris,  recommending  its  rejection,  on  the  ground 
that  such  a  procession  was  illegal,  not  only  because  of  its  avowed 
object  of  forcing  its  way  to  the  king,  but  also  because  it  was 
likely  to  lead  into  acts  of  violence  even  if  it  had  not  premedi- 
tated them. 

His  arguments  were  earnestly  supported  by  the  constitution- 
alists, and  opposed  and  ridiculed  by  Vergniaud.  But  before  the 
discussion  was  over,  the  rioters,  who  had  now  reached  the  hall, 

*  "  Gare  la  Lanterne,"  alluding  to  the  use  of  the  chains  to  which  the  street- 
lamps  were  suspended  as  gibbets. 


398  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

took  the  decision  into  their  own  hands,  forced  open  the  door, 
and  put  forward  a  spokesman  to  read  what  they  called  a  petition, 
but  which  was  in  truth  a  sanguinary  denunciation  of  those  whom 
it  proclaimed  the  enemies  of  the  nation,  and  of  whom  it  demand- 
ed that  "  the  land  should  be  purged."  Insolent  and  ferocious  as 
it  was,  it,  however,  coincided  with  the  feelings  of  the  Girondins, 
who  were  now  the  masters  of  the  Assembly.  One  orator  carried 
a  motion  that  the  petitioners  should  receive  what  were  called  the 
honors  of  the  Assembly ;  or,  in  other  words,  should  be  allowed 
to  enter  the  hall  with  their  arms  and  defile  before  them.  They 
poured  in  with  exulting  uproar.  Songs,  half  blood-thirsty  and 
half  obscene,  gestures  indicative  some  of  murder,  some  of  de- 
bauchery, cries  of  "  Vive  la  nation  !"  interspersed  with  inarticulate 
yells,  were  the  sounds,  the  guillotine  and  the  queen  upon  the  gal- 
lows were  the  sights,  which  were  thought  in  character  with  the 
legislature  of  a  people  which  still  claimed  to  be  regarded  as  the 
pattern  of  civilization  by  all  Europe.  Evening  approached  be- 
fore the  last  of  the  rabble  had  passed  through  the  hall ;  and  by 
that  time  the  leading  ranks  were  in  front  of  the  Tuileries. 

There  were  but  scanty  means  of  resisting  them.  A  few  com- 
panies of  the  National  Guard  formed  the  whole  protection  of  the 
palace ;  and  with  them  the  agents  of  Orleans  and  the  Girondins 
had  been  briskly  tampering  all  the  morning.  Many  had  been  se- 
duced. A  few  remained  firm  in  their  loyalty  ;  but  those  on  whom 
the  royal  family  had  the  best  reason  to  rely  were  a  band  of  gen- 
tlemen, with  the  veteran  Marshal  de  Noailles  at  their  head,  who 
had  repaired  to  the  Tuileries  in  the  morning  to  furnish  to  their  sov- 
ereign such  defense  as  could  be  found  in  their  loyal  and  devoted 
gallantry.  Some  of  them  besides  the  old  marshal,  the  Count 
d'Hervilly,  who  had  commanded  the  cavalry  of  the  Constitution- 
al Guard,  and  M.  d'Acloque,  an  officer  of  the  National  Guard, 
brought  military  experience  to  aid  their  valor,  and  made  such 
arrangements  as  the  time  and  character  of  the  building  rendered 
practicable  to  keep  the  rioters  at  bay.  But  the  utmost  bravery 
of  such  a  handful  of  men,  for  they  were  no  more,  and  even  the 
more  solid  resistance  of  iron  gates  and  barriers,  were  unavailing 
against  the  thousands  that  assailed  them.  Exasperated  at  find- 
ing the  gates  closed  against  them,  the  rioters  began  to  beat  upon 
them  with  sledge-hammers.  Presently  they  were  joined  by  Ser- 
gent  and  Panis,  two  of  the  municipal  magistrates,  who  ordered 
the  sentinels  to  open  the  gates  to  the  sovereign  people.  The 


FURY  OF  THE  RIOTERS  IN  THE  PALACE.  399 

sentinels  fled ;  the  gates  were  opened  or  broken  down ;  the  mob 
seized  one  of  the  cannons  which  stood  in  the  Place  du  Carrousel, 
carried  it  up  the  stairs  of  the  palace,  and  planted  it  against  the 
door  of  the  royal  apartments ;  and,  while  they  shouted  out  a  de- 
mand that  the  king  should  show  himself,  they  began  to  batter 
the  door  as  before  they  had  battered  the  gates,  and  threatened,  if 
it  should  not  yield  to  their  hatchets,  to  blow  it  down  with  can- 
non-shot. 

Fear  of  personal  danger  was  not  one  of  the  king's  weaknesses. 
The  hatchets  beat  down  the  outer  door,  and,  as  it  fell,  he  came 
forth  from  the  room  behind,  and  with  unruffled  countenance  ac- 
costed the  ruffians  who  were  pouring  through  it.  His  sister,  the 
Princess  Elizabeth,  was  at  his  side.  He  had  charged  those  around 
him  to  keep  the  queen  back ;  and  she,  knowing  how  special  an 
object  of  the  popular  hatred  and  fury  she  was,  with  a  fortitude 
beyond  that  which  defies  death,  remained  out  of  sight  lest  she 
should  add  to  his  danger.  For  a  moment  the  mob,  respecting,  in 
spite  of  themselves,  the  calm  heroism  with  which  they  were  con- 
fronted, paused  in  their  onset ;  but  those  in  front  were  pushed 
on  by  those  behind,  and  pikes  were  leveled  and  blows  were  aimed 
at  both  the  king  and  the  princess,  whom  they  mistook  for  the 
queen.  At  first  there  were  but  one  or  two  attendants  at  the 
king's  side,  but  they  were  faithful  and  brave  men.  One  struck 
down  a  ruffian  who  was  lifting  his  weapon  to  aim  a  blow  at  Louis 
himself.  A  pike  was  even  leveled  at  his  sister,  when  her  equerry, 
M.  Bousquet,  too  far  off  to  bring  her  the  aid  of  his  right  hand, 
called  out  "Spare  the  princess."  Delicate  as  were  her  frame 
and  features,  Elizabeth  was  worthy  of  her  blood,  and  as  dauntless 
as  the  rest.  She  turned  to  her  preserver  almost  reproachfully : 
"  Why  did  you  undeceive  him  ?  it  might  have  saved  the  queen." 
But  after  a  few  seconds,  Acloque  with  some  grenadiers  of  the 
National  Guard  on  whom  he  could  still  rely,  hastened  up  by  a 
back  staircase  to  defend  his  sovereign  ;  and,  with  the  aid  of  some 
of  the  gentlemen  who  had  come  with  the  Marshal  de  Noailles, 
drew  the  king  back  into  a  recess  formed  by  a  window ;  and  raised 
a  rampart  of  benches  in  front  of  him,  and  one  still  more  trust- 
worthy of  their  own  bodies.  They  would  gladly  have  attacked 
the  rioters  and  driven  them  back,  but  were  restrained  by  Louis 
himself.  "Put  up  your  swords,"  said  he;  "this  crowd  is  ex- 
cited rather  than  wicked."  And  he  addressed  those  who  had 
forced  their  way  into  the  room  with  words  of  condescending 


400  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

conciliation.  They  replied  with  threats  and  imprecations ;  and 
sought  to  force  their  way  onward,  pressing  back  by  their  mere 
numbers  and  weight  the  small  group  of  loyal  champions  who  by 
this  time  had  gathered  in  front  of  him. 

So  great  was  the  uproar  that  presently  a  report  reached  the 
main  body  of  the  insurgents,  who  were  still  in  the  garden  be- 
neath, that  Louis  had  been  killed ;  and  they  mingled  shouts  of 
triumph  with  cheers  for  Orleans  as  their  new  king,  and  demand- 
ed that  the  heads  of  the  king  and  queen  should  be  thrown  down 
to  them  from  the  windows ;  but  no  actual  injury  was  inflicted  on 
Louis,  though  he  owed  his  safety  more  to  his  own  calmness  than 
even  to  the  devotion  of  his  guards.  One  ruffian  threatened  him 
with  instant  death  if  he  did  not  at  once  grant  every  prayer  con- 
tained in  their  petition.  He  replied,  as  composedly  as  if  he  had 
been  on  his  throne  at  Versailles,  that  the  present  was  not  the  time 
for  making  such  a  demand,  nor  was  this  the  way  in  which  to 
make  it.  The  dignity  of  the  answer  seemed  to  imply  a  contempt 
for  the  threateners,  and  the  mob  grew  more  uproarious.  "  Fear 
not,  sire,"  said  one  of  Acloque's  grenadiers,  "  we  are  around  you." 
The  king  took  the  man's  hand  and  placed  it  on  his  heart,  which 
was  beating  more  calmly  than  that  of  the  soldier  himself.  "  Judge 
yourself,"  said  he,  "  if  I  fear."  Legendre,  the  butcher,  raised  his 
pike  as  if  to  strike  him,  while  he  reproached  him  as  a  traitor  and 
the  enemy  of  his  country.  "I  am  not,  and  never  have  been 
aught  but  the  sincerest  friend  of  my  people,"  was  the  gentle  but 
fearless  answer.  "  If  it  be  so,  put  on  this  red  cap,"  and  the 
butcher  thrust  one  into  his  hand  on  the  end  of  his  pike,  prepared, 
as  Louis  believed,  to  plunge  the  weapon  itself  into  his  breast  if 
he  refused.  The  king  put  it  on,  and  so  little  regarded  it  that  he 
forgot  to  remove  it  again,  as  he  afterward  repented  that  he  had 
not  done,  thinking  that  his  conduct  in  allowing  it  to  remain  on 
his  head  bore  too  strong  a  resemblance  to  fear  or  to  an  unworthy 
compromise  of  his  dignity. 

But  still  the  uproar  increased,  and  above  it  rose  loud  cries  for 
the  queen,  till  at  last  she  also  came  forward.  As  yet,  from  the 
motives  that  have  already  been  mentioned,  she  had  consented  to 
remain  out  of  sight ;  but  each  explosion  of  the  mob  increased 
her  unwillingness  to  keep  back.  It  was,  she  felt,  her  duty  to  be 
always  at  the  king's  side ;  if  need  be,  to  die  with  him ;  to  stand 
aloof  was  infamy ;  and  at  last,  as  the  demands  for  her  appearance 
increased,  even  those  around  her  confessed  that  it  might  be  safer 


ENTRANCE  OF  THE  QUEEN,  401 

for  her  to  show  herself.  The  door  was  thrown  open,  and,  leading 
forth  her  children,  from  whom  she  refused  to  part,  and  accom- 
panied by  Madame  de  Tourzel,  Madame  de  Lamballe,  and  others 
of  her  ladies,  the  most  timid  of  whom  seemed  as  if  inspired  by 
her  example,  Marie  Antoinette  advanced  and  took  her  place  by 
the  side  of  her  husband,  and,  with  head  erect  and  color  heightened 
by  the  sight  of  her  enemies,  faced  them  disdainfully.  As  lions 
in  their  utmost  rage  have  recoiled  before  a  man  who  has  looked 
them  steadily  in  the  face,  so  did  even  those  miscreants  quail  before 
their  pure  and  high-minded  queen.  At  first  it  seemed  as  if  her 
bitterest  enemies  were  to  be  found  among  her  own  sex.  The  men 
were  for  a  moment  silenced ;  but  a  young  girl,  whose  appearance 
was  not  that  of  the  lowest  class,  came  forward  and  abused  her  in 
coarse  and  furious  language,  especially  reviling  her  as  "  the  Aus- 
trian." The  queen,  astonished  at  finding  such  animosity  in  one 
apparently  tender  and  gentle,  condescended  to  expostulate  with 
her.  "  Why  do  you  hate  me  ?  I  have  never  injured  you."  "  You 
have  not  injured  me,  but  it  is  you  who  cause  the  misery  of  the 
nation."  "  Poor  child,"  replied  Marie  Antoinette,  "  they  have  de- 
ceived you.  I  am  the  wife  of  your  king,  the  mother  of  your 
dauphin,  who  will  be  your  king.  I  am  a  Frenchwoman  in  every 
feeling  of  my  heart.  I  shall  never  again  see  Austria.  I  can 
only  be  happy  or  unhappy  in  France,  and  I  was  happy  when  you 
loved  me."  The  girl  was  melted  by  her  patience  and  gentleness. 
She  burst  into  tears  of  shame,  and  begged  pardon  for  her  previ- 
ous conduct.  "  I  did  not  know  you,"  she  said  ;  "  I  see  now  that 
you  are  good."*  Another  asked  her,  "  How  old  is  your  girl  ?" 
"She  is  old  enough,"  replied  the  queen,  "to  feel  acutely  such 
scenes  as  these."  But,  while  these  brief  conversations  were  going 
on,  the  crowd  kept  pressing  forward.  One  officer  had  drawn  a 
table  in  front  of  the  queen  as  she  advanced,  so  as  to  screen  her 
from  actual  contact  with  any  of  the  rioters,  but  more  than  one  of 
them  stretched  across  it  as  if  to  reach  her.  One  fellow  demand- 
ed that  she  should  put  a  red  cap,  which  he  threw  to  her,  on  the 
head  of  the  dauphin,  and,  as  she  saw  the  king  wearing  one,  she 
consented ;  but  it  was  too  large  and  fell  down  the  child's  face, 
almost  stifling-  him  with  its  thickness.  Santerre  himself  reached 
across  and  removed  it,  and,  leaning  with  his  hands  on  the  table, 
which  shook  beneath  his  vehemence,  addressed  her  with  what  he 

*  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  xjti. 
26 


402  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

meant  for  courtesy.  "  Princess,"  said  he,  "  do  not  fear.  The 
French  people  do  not  wish  to  slay  you.  I  promise  this  in  their 
name."  Marie  Antoinette  had  long  ago  declared  that  her  heart 
had  become  French ;  it  was  too  much  so  for  her  to  allow  such  a 
man's  claim  to  be  the  spokesman  of  the  nation.  "  It  is  not  by 
such  as  you,"  she  replied,  with  lofty  scorn ;  "  it  is  not  by  such  as 
you  that  I  judge  of  the  French  people,  but  by  brave  men  like 
these;"  and  she  pointed  to  the  gentlemen  who  were  standing 
round  her  as  her  champions,  and  to  the  faithful  grenadiers.  The 
well-timed  and  well  -  deserved  compliment  roused  them  to  still 
greater  enthusiasm,  but  already  the  danger  was  passing  away. 

The  Assembly  had  seen  with  indifference  the  departure  of  the 
mob  to  attack  the  Tuileries,  and  had  proceeded  with  its  ordinary 
business  as  if  nothing  were  likely  to  happen  which  could  call  for 
its  interference.  But  when  the  uproar  within  the  palace  became 
audible  in  the  hall,  the  Count  de  Dumas,  one  of  the  very  few  men 
of  noble  birth  who  had  been  returned  to  this  second  Assembly, 
with  a  few  other  deputies  of  the  better  class,  hastened  to  see  what 
was  taking  place,  and,  quickly  returning,  reported  the  king's  immi- 
nent danger  to  their  colleagues.  Dumas  gave  such  offense  by  the 
boldness  of  his  language  that  some  of  the  Jacobins  threatened 
him  with  violence,  but  he  refused  to  be  silenced ;  and  his  firmness 
prevailed,  as  firmness  nearly  always  did  prevail  in  an  Assembly 
where,  though  there  were  many  fierce  and  vehement  blusterers, 
there  were  very  few  men  of  real  courage.  In  compliance  with 
his  vehement  demand  for  instant  action,  a  deputation  of  members 
was  sent  to  take  measures  for  the  king's  safety ;  and  then,  at  last, 
Petion,  who  had  carefully  kept  aloof  while  there  seemed  to  be  a 
chance  of  the  king  being  murdered,  now  that  he  could  no  longer 
hope  for  such  a  consummation,  repaired  to  the  palace  and  present- 
ed himself  before  him.  To  him  he  had  the  effrontery  to  declare 
that  he  had  only  just  become  apprised  of  his  situation.  From  the 
Assembly,  at  a  later  hour  in  the  evening,  he  claimed  the  credit  of 
having  organized  the  riot.  But  Louis  would  not  condescend  to 
pretend  to  believe  him.  "  It  was  extraordinary,"  he  replied,  "  that 
Petion  should  not  have  earlier  known  what  had  lasted  so  long." 
Even  he  could  not  but  be  for  a  moment  abashed  at  the  king's  un- 
wonted expression  of  indignation.  But  he  soon  recovered  him- 
self, and  with  unequaled  impudence  turned  and  thanked  the  crowd 
for  the  moderation  and  dignity  with  which  they  had  exercised  the 
right  of  petition,  and  bid  them  "  finish  the  day  in  similar  conform- 


SANTERRE'S  DIABOLICAL  RESOLVE.  403 

ity  with  the  law,  and  retire  to  their  homes."  They  obeyed.  The 
interference  of  the  deputies  had  convinced  their  leaders  that  they 
could  not  succeed  in  their  purpose  now.  Santerre,  whose  softer 
mood,  such  as  it  had  been,  had  soon  passed  away,  muttered  with^a 
deep  oath  that  they  had  missed  their  blow,  but  must  try  it  again 
hereafter.  For  the  present  he  led  off  his  brigands ;  the  palace 
and  gardens  were  restored  to  quiet,  though  the  traces  of  the  as- 
sault to  which  they  had  been  exposed  could  not  easily  be  effaced ; 
and  Louis  and  his  family  were  left  in  tranquillity  to  thank  God 
for  their  escape,  but  to  forebode  also  that  similar  trials  were  in 
store  for  them,  all  of  which,  it  was  not  likely,  would  have  so  inno- 
cent a  termination.* 

*  Dumas,  "  Memoirs  of  his  Own  Time,"  i.,  p.  363. 


404  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XXXVL 

Feelings  of  Marie  Antoinette. — Different  Plans  are  formed  for  her  Escape. — , 
She  hopes  for  Aid  from  Austria  and  Prussia. — La  Fayette  comes  to  Paris. 
— His  Mismanagement. — An  Attempt  is  made  to  assassinate  the  Queen.— 
The  Motion  of  Bishop  Lamourette. — The  Feast  of  the  Federation. — La  Fay- 
ette proposes  a  Plan  for  the  King's  Escape. — Bertrand  proposes  Another. 
— Both  are  rejected  by  the  Queen. 

WE  can  do  little  more  than  guess  at  the  feelings  of  Marie  An- 
toinette after  such  a  day  of  horrors.  She  could  scarcely  venture 
to  write  a  letter,  lest  it  should  fall  into  hands  for  which  it  was  not 
intended,  and  be  misinterpreted  so  as  to  be  mischievous  to  herself 
and  to  her  correspondents.  And  two  brief  notes — one  on  the  4th 
of  July  to  Mercy,  and  one  written  a  day  or  two  later  to  the  Land- 
gravine of  Hesse-Darmstadt — are  all  that,  so  far  as  we  know,  pro- 
ceeded from  her  pen  in  the  sad  period  between  the  two  attacks 
on  the  palace.  Brief  as  they  are,  they  are  characteristic  as  show- 
ing her  unshaken  resolution  to  perform  her  duty  to  her  family, 
and  proving  at  the  same  time  how  absolutely  free  she  was  from 
any  delusion  as  to  the  certain  event  of  the  struggle  in  which  she 
was  engaged.  No  courage  was  ever  more  entirely  founded  on 
high  and  virtuous  principle,  for  no  one  was  ever  less  sustained  by 
hope.  To  Mercy  she  says : 

"July  4th,  1792. 

"You  know  the  occurrences  of  the  20th  of  June.  Our  posi- 
tion becomes  every  day  more  critical.  There  is  nothing  but  vio- 
lence and  rage  on  one  side,  weakness  and  inactivity  on  the  other. 
We  can  reckon  neither  on  the  National  Guard  nor  on  the  army. 
We  do  not  know  whether  to  remain  in  Paris,  or  to  throw  our- 
selves into  some  other  place.  It  is  more  than  time  for  the  pow- 
ers to  speak  out  boldly.  The  14th  of  July  and  the  days  which 
will  follow  it  may  become  days  of  general  mourning  for  France, 
and  of  regret  to  the  powers  who  will  have  been  too  slow  in  ex- 
plaining themselves.  All  is  lost  if  the  factions  are  not  arrested  in 
their  wickedness  by  fear  of  impending  chastisement.  They  are 
resolved  on  a  republic  at  all  risks.  To  arrive  at  that,  they  have 
determined  to  assassinate  the  king.  It  would  be  necessary  that 


PROPOSALS  FOR  HER  ESCAPE.  405 

any  manifesto*  should  make  the  National  Assembly  and  Paris  re- 
sponsible for  his  life  and  the  lives  of  his  family. 

"In  spite  of  all  these  dangers,  we  will  not  change  our  resolu- 
tion. You  may  depend  on  this  as  much  as  I  depend  on  your  at- 
tachment. It  is  a  pleasure  to  me  to  believe  that  you  allow  me  a 
share  of  the  attachment  which  bound  you  to  my  mother.  And 
this  is  a  moment  to  give  me  a  great  proof  of  it,  in  saving  me  and 
mine,  if  there  be  still  time."f 

The  letter  to  the  landgravine  was  one  of  reply  to  a  proposal 
which  that  princess,  who  had  long  been  one  of  her  most  attached 
friends,  had  lately  made  to  her,  that  she  should  allow  her  brother, 
Prince  George  of  Darmstadt,  to  carry  out  a  plan  by  which,  as  he 
conceived,  he  could  convey  the  queen  and  her  children  safely  out 
of  Paris ;  the  enterprise  being,  as  both  he  and  his  sister  flattered 
themselves,  greatly  facilitated  by  the  circumstance  that  the  prince's 
person  was  wholly  unknown  in  the  French  capital. 

"  July,  17924 

•  "  Your  friendship  and  your  anxiety  for  me  have  touched  my  very 
inmost  soul.  The  person§  who  is  about  to  return  to  you  will  ex- 
plain the  reasons  which  have  detained  him  so  long.  He  will  also 
tell  you  that  at  present  I  do  not  dare  to  receive  him  in  my  own 
apartment.  Yet  it  would  have  been  very  pleasant  to  talk  to  him 
about  you,  to  whom  I  am  so  tenderly  attached.  No,  my  princess, 
while  I  feel  all  the  kindness  of  your  offers,  I  can  not  accept  them. 
I  am  vowed  for  life  to  my  duties,  and  to  those  beloved  persons 
whose  misfortunes  I  share,  and  who,  whatever  people  may  say  of 
them,  deserve  to  be  regarded  with  interest  by  all  the  world  for 
the  courage  with  which  they  support  their  position.  The  bearer 
of  this  letter  will  be  able  to  give  you  a  detailed  account  of  what 
is  going  on  at  present,  and  of  the  spirit  of  this  place  where  we  are 
living.  I  hear  that  he  has  seen  much,  and  has  formed  very  cor- 
rect ideas.  May  all  that  we  are  now  doing  and  suffering  one  day 
make  our  children  happy !  This  is  the  only  wish  that  I  allow  my- 
self. Farewell,  my  princess ;  they  have  taken  from  me  every  thing 
except  my  heart,  which  will  always  remain  constant  in  its  love  for 

*  To  be  issued  by  the  foreign  powers. 

f  Feuillet  de  Conches,  vi.,  p.  192,  and  Arneth,  p.  265. 

\  The  day  is  not  mentioned.  "  Lettres  de  la  Reine  Marie  Antoinette  a  la 
Landgravine  Louise,"  etc.,  p.  47. 

§  The  bearer  was  Prince  George  himself,  but  she  does  not  venture  to  name 
him  more  explicitly. 


406  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

you.  Be  sure  of  this ;  the  loss  of  your  love  would  be  an  evil  which 
I  could  not  endure.  I  embrace  you  tenderly.  A  thousand  compli- 
ments to  all  yours.  I  am  prouder  than  ever  of  having  been  born 
a  German." 

In  her  mention  of  the  14th  of  July  as  likely  to  bring  fresh  dan- 
gers, she  is  alluding  to  the  announcement  of  an  intention  of  the 
Jacobins  to  hold  a  fresh  festival  to  commemorate  the  destruction 
of  the  Bastile  on  the  anniversary  of  that  exploit ;  a  celebration 
which  she  had  ample  reason  to  expect  would  furnish  occasion  for 
some  fresh  tumult  and  outrage.  And  we  may  remark  that  in  one 
of  these  letters  she  rests  her  whole  hope  on  foreign  assistance; 
while  in  the  other,  she  rejects  foreign  aid  to  escape  from  her  al- 
most hopeless  position.  But  the  key  to  her  feeling  in  both  cases 
is  one  and  the  same.  Above  all  things  she  was  a  devoted,  faith- 
ful wife  and  mother.  To  herself  and  her  own  safety  she  never 
gave  a  thought.  Her  first  duty,  she  rightly  judged,  was  to  the 
king,  and  she  looked  to  such  a  manifesto  as  she  desired  Austria 
and  Prussia  to  issue,  backed  by  the  movements  of  a  powerful  army, 
as  the  measure  which  afforded  the  best  prospect  of  saving  her 
husband,  who  could  hardly  be  trusted  to  save  himself ;  while,  for 
the  very  same  reason,  she  refused  to  fly  without  him,  even  though 
flight  might  have  saved  her  children,  her  son  and  heir,  as  well  as 
herself,  because  it  would  have  increased  her  husband's  danger.  In 
each  case  her  decision  was  that  of  a  brave  and  devoted  wife,  not 
perhaps  in  both  instances  judicious ;  for  when  Prussia  did  mingle 
in  the  contest,  as  it  did  in  the  first  week  in  July,  it  evidently  in- 
creased the  perils  of  Louis,  if  indeed  they  were  capable  of  aggra- 
vation, by  giving  the  Jacobins  a  plea  for  raising  the  cry  "  that  the 
country  was  in  danger."  But  in  the  second  case,  in  her  refusal  to 
flee,  and  to  leave  her  husband  by  himself  to  confront  the  existing 
and  impending  dangers,  she  judged  rightly  and  worthily  of  her- 
self ;  and  the  only  circumstance  that  has  prevented  her  from  re- 
ceiving the  credit  due  for  her  refusal  to  avail  herself  of  Prince 
George's  offer  is  that  throughout  the  whole  period  of  the  Revo- 
lution her  acts  of  disinterestedness  and  heroism  are  so  incessant 
that  single  deeds  of  the  kind  are  lost  in  the  contemplation  of  her 
entire  career  during  this  long  period  of  trial. 

It  was  the  peculiar  ill-fortune  of  Louis  that  more  than  once,  the 
very  efforts  made  by  people  who  desired  to  assist  him  increased  his 
perils.  The  events  of  the  20th  of  June  had  shocked  and  alarmed 
even  La  Fayette.  From  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  he  had 


LA.  FATETTE^S  LACK  OF  MILITARY  SKILL.  407 

vacillated  between  a  desire  for  a  republic  and  for  a  limited  mon- 
archy on  something  like  the  English  pattern,  without  being  able  to 
decide  which  to  prefer.  He  had  shown  himself  willing  to  court  a 
base  popularity  with  the  mob  by  heaping  uncalled-for  insults  on 
the  king  and  queen.  But  though  he  had  coquetted  with  the  ultra- 
revolutionists,  and  allowed  them  to  make  a  tool  of  him,  he  had  not 
nerve  for  the  villainies  which  it  was  now  clear  that  they  meditated. 
He  had  no  taste  for  bloodshed ;  and,  though  gifted  with  but  little 
acuteness,  he  saw  that  the  success  of  the  Jacobins  and  Girondins 
would  lead  neither  to  a  republic  nor  to  a  limited  monarchy,  but 
to  anarchy ;  and  he  had  discernment  enough  to  dread  that.  He 
therefore  now  sincerely  desired  to  save  the  king's  life,  and  even 
what  remained  of  his  authority,  especially  if  he  could  so  order 
matters  that  their  preservation  should  be  seen  to  be  his  own  work. 
He  was  conscious  also  that  he  could  reckon  on  many  allies  in  any 
effort  which  he  might  make  for  the  prevention  of  further  outrages. 
The  more  respectable  portion  of  the  Parisians  viewed  the  recent 
outrages  with  disgust,  sharpened  by  personal  alarm.  The  domin- 
ion of  Santerre  and  his  gangs  of  destitute  desperadoes  was  mani- 
festly fraught  with  destruction  to  themselves  as  well  as  to  the  king. 
The  greater  part  of  the  army  under  his  command  shared  these 
feelings,  and  would  gladly  have  followed  him  to  Paris  to  crush 
the  revolutionary  clubs,  and  to  inflict  condign  punishment  on  the 
authors  and  chief  agents  in  the  late  insurrection.  If  he  had  but 
had  the  skill  to  avail  himself  of  this  favorable  state  of  feeling, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  was  in  his  power  at  this  moment 
to  have  established  the  king  in  the  full  exercise  of  all  the  author- 
ity vested  in  him  by  the  Constitution,  or  even  to  have  induced 
the  Assembly  to  enlarge  that  authority.  He  so  mismanaged  mat- 
ters that  he  only  increased  the  king's  danger,  and  brought  general 
contempt  and  imminent  danger  on  himself  likewise.  His  enemies 
had  more  than  once  accused  him  of  wishing  to  copy  Cromwell. 
His  friends  had  boasted  that  he  would  emulate  Monk.  But  if  he 
was  too  scrupulous  for  the  audacious  wickedness  of  the  one,  he 
proved  himself  equally  devoid  of  the  well-calculating  shrewdness 
of  the  other.  If,  subsequently,  he  had  any  reason  to  congratulate 
himself  on  the  result  of  his  conduct,  it  was  that,  like  the  stork  in 
the  fable,  after  he  had  thrust  his  head  into  the  mouth  of  the  wolf, 
he  was  allowed  to  draw  it  out  again  in  safety. 

Louis's  enemies  had  abundantly  shown  that  they  did  not  lack 
boldness.     If  they  were  to  be  defeated,  it  could  only  be  by  ac- 


408  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

tion  as  bold  as  their  own.  Unhappily,  La  Fayette's  courage  had 
usually  found  vent  rather  in  blustering  words  than  in  stout  deeds ; 
and  those  were  the  only  weapons  he  could  bring  himself  to  em- 
ploy now.  He  resolved  to  remonstrate  with  the  Assembly ;  but 
instead  of  bringing  up  his  army,  or  even  a  detachment,  to  back 
his  remonstrance,  he  came  to  Paris  with  a  single  aid-de-camp, 
and,  on  the  28th  of  June,  presented  himself  at  the  bar  of  the  As- 
sembly and  demanded  an  audience.  A  fortnight  before  he  had 
written  a  letter  to  the  president,  in  which  he  had  denounced  alike 
the  Jacobin  leaders  of  the  clubs  and  the  Girondin  ministers,  and 
had  called  on  the  Assembly  to  suppress  the  clubs ;  a  letter  which 
had  produced  no  effect  except  to  unite  the  two  parties  against 
whom  it  was  aimed  more  closely  together,  and  also  to  give  them 
a  warning  of  his  hostility  to  them,  which,  till  he  was  in  a  position 
to  show  it  by  deeds,  it  would  have  been  wiser  to  have  avoided. 

He  now  repeated  by  word  of  mouth  the  statements  and  argu- 
ments which  he  had  previously  advanced  in  writing,  with  the  ad- 
dition of  a  denunciation  of  the  recent  insurrection  and  its  au- 
thors, whom,  he  insisted,  the  Assembly  was  bound  instantly  to 
prosecute.  His  speech  was  not  ill  received ;  for  the  Constitution- 
alists, who  knew  what  he  designed  to  say,  had  mustered  in  full 
force,  and  had  packed  the  galleries  beforehand  with  hired  clap- 
pers ;  and  many  even  of  the  Deputies  who  did  not  belong  to 
that  party  cheered  him,  so  obvious  to  all  but  the  most  desperate 
was  the  danger  to  the  whole  State,  if  Santerre  and  his  brigands 
should  be  allowed  to  become  its  masters.  But  they  cared  little 
for  a  barren  indignation  which  had  no  more  effectual  weapon 
than  reproaches.  He  had  said  enough  to  exasperate,  but  had  not 
done  enough  to  intimidate ;  while  those  whom  he  denounced  had 
greater  boldness  and  presence  of  mind  than  he,  and  had  the  forces 
on  which  they  relied  for  support  at  hand  and  available.  They  in- 
stantly turned  the  latter  on  himself,  and  in  their  turn  denounced 
him  for  having  left  his  army  without  leave.  He  was  frightened, 
or  at  least  perplexed,  by  such  a  charge.  He  made  no  reply,  but 
seemed  like  one  stupefied ;  and  it  was  only  through  the  eloquence 
of  one  of  his  friends,  M.  Ramond,  that  he  was  saved  from  the  im- 
peachment with  which  Guadet  and  Vergniaud  openly  threatened 
him  for  quitting  the  army  without  leave. 

Ramond's  oratory  succeeded  in  carrying  through  the  Assembly 
a  motion  in  his  favor,  and  several  companies  of  the  National 
Guard  and  a  vast  multitude  of  the  citizens  showed  their  sympa- 


PLOT  TO  ASSASSINATE  LOUIS.  409 

thy  with  his  views  by  escorting  him  with  acclamations  to  his  ho- 
tel. But  neither  their  evident  inclination  to  support  him,  nor 
even  the  danger  with  which  he  himself  had  been  threatened,  could 
give  him  resolution  and  firmness  in  action.  For  a  moment  he 
made  a  demonstration  as  if  he  were  prepared  to  secure  the  suc- 
cess of  his  designs  by  force.  He  proposed  that  the  king  should 
the  next  morning  review  Acloque's  companies  of  the  National 
Guard,  after  which  he  himself  would  harangue  them  on  their  duty 
to  the  king  and  Constitution.  But  the  Girondins  persuaded  Pe- 
tion  to  exert  his  authority,  as  mayor,  to  prohibit  the  review.  La 
Fayette  was  weak  enough  to  submit  to  the  prohibition;  and, 
quickened,  it  is  said,  by  intelligence  that  Petion  was  preparing  to 
arrest  him,  the  next  day  retired  in  haste  from  Paris  and  rejoined 
the  army. 

He  had  done  the  king  nothing  but  harm.  He  had  shown  to 
all  the  world  that  though  the  Royalists  and  Constitutionalists 
might  still  be  numerically  the  stronger  party,  for  all  purposes  of 
action  they  were  by  far  the  weaker.  He  had  encouraged  those 
w.hom  he  had  intended  to  daunt,  and  strengthened  those  whom 
he  had  hoped  to  crush ;  and  they,  in  consequence,  proceeded  in 
their  treasons  with  greater  boldness  and  openness  than  ever. 
Marie  Antoinette,  as  we  have  seen,  had  expressed  her  belief  that 
they  designed  to  assassinate  Louis,  and  she  now  employed  her- 
self, as  she  had  done  once  before,  in  quilting  him  a  waistcoat  of 
thickness  sufficient  to  resist  a  dagger  or  a  bullet ;  though  so  in- 
cessant was  the  watch  which  was  set  on  all  their  movements  that 
it  was  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  she  could  find  an  opportu- 
nity of  trying  it  on  him.  But  it  was  not  the  king,  but  she  her- 
self, who  was  the  victim  whom  the  traitors  proposed  to  take  off 
in  such  a  manner ;  and  in  the  second  week  of  July  a  man  was  de- 
tected at  the  foot  of  the  staircase  leading  to  her  apartments,  dis- 
guised as  a  grenadier,  and  sufficiently  equipped  with  murderous 
weapons.  He  was  seized  by  the  guard,  who  had  previous  warn- 
ing of  his  design ;  but  was  instantly  rescued  by  a  gang  of  ruffians 
like  himself,  who  were  on  the  watch  to  take  advantage  of  the 
confusion  which  might  be  expected  to  arise  from  the  accomplish- 
ment of  his  crime. 

Meanwhile  the  Assembly  wavered,  hesitated,  and  did  nothing ; 
the  Girondins  and  Jacobins  were  fertile  in  devising  plots,  and  act- 
ive in  carrying  them  out.  One  day,  as  if  seized  with  a  panic  at 
some  report  of  the  strength  of  the  Austrian  and  Prussian  armies, 


410  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

the  Assembly  again  passed  a  vote  declaring  the  country  in  dan- 
ger; on  another,  roused  by  a  letter  which  a  Madame  Gouges,  a 
daughter  of  a  fashionable  dress-maker,  a  lady  of  more  notoriety 
than  reputation,  but  who  cultivated  a  character  for  philosophy, 
took  upon  herself  to  write  to  them,  and  still  more  by  a  curiously 
sentimental  speech  of  the  Bishop  of  Lyons,  with  the  appropriate 
name  of  Lamourette,*  the  members  bound  themselves  to  have  for 
the  future  but  one  heart  and  one  sentiment ;  and  for  some  min- 
utes Jacobins,  Girondins,  Constitutionalists,  and  Royalists  were 
rushing  to  and  fro  across  the  floor  of  the  hall  in  a  frenzy  of  mut- 
ual benevolence,  embracing  and  kissing  one  another,  and  swearing 
an  eternal  friendship.  •  They  even  sent  a  message  to  Louis  to  beg 
him  to  come  and  witness  this  new  harmony.  He  came  at  once. 
With  his  disposition,  it  was  not  strange  that  he  yielded  to  the 
illusion  of  the  strange  spectacle  which  he  beheld.  He  shed  tears 
of  joy,  declared  the  complete  agreement  of  his  sentiments  with 
theirs,  and  predicted  that  their  union  would  save  France.  They 
escorted  him  back  to  the  Tuileries  with  cheers,  and  the  very  same 
evening,  after  a  stormy  debate,  which  was  a  remarkable  commen- 
tary on  the  affection  which  they  had  just  vowed  to  one  another, 
they  set  him  at  defiance,  insulting  him  by  annulling  some  decrees 
to  which  he  had  given  his  assent,  and  passing  a  vote  of  confidence 
in  Petion  as  mayor. 

The  Feast  of  the  Federation,  as  it  was  called,  passed  off  quietly. 
The  king  again  recognized  the  Constitution  before  the  altar  erect- 
ed in  the  Champ  de  Mars,  and,  as  he  drove  back  to  the  palace, 
the  populace  accompanied  him  the  whole  way,  never  ceasing  their 
acclamations  of  "  Vivent  le  roi  et  la  reine  !"f  till  they  had  dis- 
mounted and  returned  to  their  apartments.  Such  a  close  of  the 
day  had  been  expected  by  no  one.  La  Fayette,  who  seems  at  last 
to  have  become  really  anxious  to  save  the  lives  of  the  king  and 
queen,  and  to  have  been  seriously  convinced  that  they  were  in 
danger,  had  now  formally  opened  a  communication  with  the 
court.  He  concerted  his  plans  with  Marshal  Luckner,  and  had 
learned  so  much  wisdom  from  his  recent  failure  that  he  now 
placed  no  reliance  on  any  thing  but  a  display  of  superior  force. 
He  accordingly  proposed  to  Louis  to  bring  up  a  battalion  of  pick- 


*  Lamourette  might  correspond  to  the  English  name  Lovekin. 
f  Letter  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  date  July  16th,  1792,  Feuillet  de  Conches, 
vi.,  p.  215. 


PLANS  FOR  THE  ESCAPE  OF  THE  ROYAL  FAMILY.    411 

ed  men  from  his  and  the  marshal's  armies  to  escort  him  to  the 
Champ  de  Mars ;  and,  judging  that,  even  if  the  feast  should  pass 
off  without  any  fresh  danger,  the  king  could  never  be  considered 
permanently  safe  while  he  remained  in  Paris,  he  recommended 
that  on  the  next  day,  Louis,  still  under  the  protection  of  the  same 
troops,  should  announce  to  the  Assembly  his  departure  for  Com- 
piegne,  and  should  at  once  quit  the  capital  for  that  town,  to  which 
trusty  officers  would  in  the  mean  time  have  brought  up  other  di- 
visions of  the  army  in  sufficient  strength  to  set  all  disaffected  and 
seditious  spirits  at  defiance. 

The  plan  was  at  all  events  well  conceived,  but  it  was  declined. 
Louis  did  not  apparently  distrust  the  marquis's  good  faith,  but  he 
doubted  his  ability  to  carry  out  an  enterprise  requiring  an  energy 
and  decision  of  which  no  part  of  La  Fayette's  career  had  given 
any  indication ;  while  the  queen  distrusted  his  loyalty  even  more 
than  his  capacity.  One  of  those  with  whom  she  took  counsel  ex- 
pressed his  opinion  of  the  marquis's  real  object  by  saying  that  he 
might  save  the  monarch,  but  not  the  monarchy ;  and  she  replied 
that  his  head  was  still  full  of  republican  notions  which  .he  had 
brought  from  America,  and  refused  to  place  the  slightest  confi- 
dence in  him.  We  may  suspect  that  she  did  not  do  him  entire 
justice,  and  may  rather  believe,  with  Louis,  that  he  was  now  act- 
ing in  good  faith ;  but,  with  a  recollection  of  all  that  she  had  suf- 
fered at  his  hands,  we  can  not  wonder  at  her  continued  distrust 
of  him.* 

But  his  was  not  the  only  plan  proposed  for  the  escape  of  the 
royal  family.  Bertrand  de  Moleville,  though  no  longer  Louis's 
minister,  retained  his  undiminished  confidence,  and  he  had  found 
a  place  which  he  regarded  as  admirably  suited  for  a  temporary 
retreat — the  Castle  of  Gaillon,  near  the  left  bank  of  the  Seine,  in 

*  It  is  remarkable,  however,  that,  if  we  are  to  take  Lamartine  as  a  guide  in 
any  respect,  and  he  certainly  was  not  in  intention  unfavorable  to  La  Fayette, 
the  marquis  was  even  now  playing  a  double  game.  Speaking  of  this  very 
proposal,  he  says :  "  La  Fayette  himself  did  not  disguise  his  ambition  for  a  pro- 
tectorate under  Louis  XVI.  At  the  very  moment  when  he  seemed  devoted  to 
the  preservation  of  the  king  he  wrote  thus  to  his  confidante,  La  Colombe :  '  In 
the  matter  of  liberty  I  do  not  trust  myself  either  to  the  king  or  to  any  other 
person,  and  if  he  were  to  assume  the  sovereign,  I  would  fight  against  him  as 
I  did  in  1789.'  " — Histoire  des  Girondins,  xvii.,  p.  7  (English  translation).  It 
deserves  remark,  too,  if  his  words  are  accurately  reported,  that  the  only  occa- 
sion in  1789  on  which  he  "fought  against"  Louis  must  have  been  October 
6th  and  6th,  when  he  professed  to  be  using  every  exertion  for  his  safety. 


412  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

Normandy,  the  people  of  which  province  were  almost  universally 
loyal.  It  was  within  the  twenty  leagues  from  Paris  which  the 
Assembly  had  fixed  for  the  limit  of  the  royal  journeys;  while 
yet,  in  case  of  the  worst,  it  was  likewise  within  easy  distance  of 
the  coast.  An  able  engineer  officer  had  pronounced  it  to  be  thor- 
oughly defensible ;  and  the  Count  d'Hervilly,  with  other  officers 
of  proved  courage  and  presence  of  mind,  undertook  the  arrange- 
ment of  all  the  military  measures  necessary  for  the  safe  escort  of 
the  entire  royal  family,  which  they  themselves  were  willing  to 
conduct,  with  the  aid  of  some  detachments  of  the  Swiss  Guards ; 
while  the  necessary  funds  were  provided  by  the  loyal  devotion  of 
the  Duke  de  Liancourt,  who  placed  a  million  of  francs  at  his  sov- 
ereign's disposal,  and  of  one  or  two  other  nobles  who  came  for- 
ward with  almost  equally  lavish  offerings.  Louis  certainly  at  first 
regarded  the  plan  with  favor,  and,  in  the  opinion  of  M.  Bertrand, 
it  would  not  have  been  difficult  to  induce  him  to  adopt  it,  if  the 
queen  could  have  been  brought  over  to  a  similar  view. 

Unhappily  several  motives  combined  to  disincline  her  to  it. 
The  insurrection  which  the  Girondins*  were  preparing  had  orig- 
inally been  fixed  for  the  29th  of  July ;  but,  a  few  days  before, 
M.  Bertrand  learned  that  it  had  been  postponed  till  the  10th  of 
August.  This  gave  him  time  to  mature  his  arrangements,  all  of 
which,  as  he  reckoned,  could  be  completed  in  time  for  the  king  to 
leave  Paris  on  the  evening  of  the  8th.  But  before  that  day  ar- 
rived news  had  reached  the  court  that  the  Duke  of  Brunswick, 
the  Prussian  commander-in-chief,  had  put  his  army  in  motion, 
and  that  he  was  not  likely  to  meet  any  obstacle  sufficient  to  pre- 
vent him  from  marching  at  once  on  Paris ;  a  measure  which,  to 
quote  the  language  of  M.  Bertrand,  "  the  queen  was  too  anxious 
to  see  accomplished  to  hesitate  at  believing  in  its  execution."f 
And  at  the  same  time  some  of  the  Jacobin  leaders  —  Danton, 
Petion,  and  Santerre — had  opened  communications  with  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  had  undertaken  for  a  large  bribe  to  prevent  the 
threatened  outbreak.  The  money  had  been  paid  to  them,  and 
Marie  Antoinette  more  than  once  boasted  to  her  attendants  that 
they  were  now  safe,  as  having  gained  over  Danton ;  placing  the 
firmer  reliance  on  this  mode  of  extrication  because  it  coincided 

*  M.  Bertrand  expressly  affirms  the  insurrection  of  August  10th  to  have 
been  almost  exclusively  the  work  of  the  Girondin  faction. — Menwires  Parti- 
culierg,  ii.,  p.  122. 

f  "Memoires  Particuliers,"  ii.,  p.  132. 


LOYALTY  OF  DE  LIANCOURT  DOUBTED.  413 

with  her  belief  that  the  mutual  jealousy  of  the  two  parties  would 
dispose  one  of  them  at  least  eventually  to  embrace  the  cause  of 
the  king,  as  their  best  ally  against  the  other.  The  result  seems 
to  show  that  the  Jacobins  only  took  the  bribe  the  more  effectual- 
ly to  lull  their  destined  victims  into  a  false  security. 

A  third  consideration,  and  that  apparently  not  the  weakest, 
was  Marie  Antoinette's  rooted  dislike  of  the  Constitutionalist 
party.  In  their  ranks  the  Due  de  Liancourt  had  taken  his  seat 
in  the  first  Assembly;  though,  as  he  assured  M.  Bertrand,  the 
king  himself  was  aware  that  his  object  in  so  doing  had  been  to 
serve  his  majesty  in  the  most  effectual  manner;  and  he  was  also 
the  statesman  whose  advice  had  mainly  contributed  to  induce 
the  king  to  visit  Paris  after  the  destruction  of  the  Bastile,  a  step 
which  she  had  always  regarded  as  the  forerunner  and  cause  of 
some  of  the  most  irremediable  encroachments  of  the  Revolution- 
ists. Even  the  duke's  present  devotion  to  the  king's  cause  could 
not  entirely  efface  from  her  mind  the  impression  that  he  was  not 
in  his  heart  friendly  to  the  royal  authority.  She  urged  these 
arguments  on  the  king.  The  last  probably  weighed  with  him 
but  little :  the  two  former  he  felt  as  strongly  as  the  queen  her- 
self;  and  he  delayed  his  decision,  sending  word  to  M.  Bertrand 
that  he  had  resolved  to  defer  his  departure  "  till  the  last  extremi- 
ty."* His  faithful  servant  was  in  amazement.  "  When,"  he  ex- 
claimed, "  was  the  last  extremity  to  be  looked  for,  if  it  had  not 
already  come  ?"  But  his  astonishment  was  turned  to  absolute 
despair  when  the  next  day  M.  Montmorin  informed  him  that  the 
project  had  been  entirely  given  up,  the  queen  herself  remarking 
"  that  M.  Bertrand  overlooked  the  circumstance  that  he  was  throw- 
ing them  altogether  into  the  hands  of  the  Constitutionalists." 

She  has  been  commonly  blamed  for  this  decision,  as  that  which 
was  the  chief  cause  of  all  the  subsequent  calamities  which  over- 
whelmed her  and  the  whole  family.  Yet  it  is  not  difficult  to 
understand  the  motives  which  influenced  her,  and  it  is  impossible 
to  refrain  from  regarding  them  with  sympathy.  She  was  now  at 
the  decisive  moment  of  a  crisis  which  might  well  perplex  the 
clearest  head.  There  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  coming  insur- 
rection would  be  the  turning-point  of  the  long  conflict  which  had 
now  lasted  three  years;  and  it  was  a  conflict  in  which  her  hus- 
band's throne  was  certainly  at  stake,  perhaps  even  his  and  her 

»  "MSmoires  Particuliers,"  p.  111. 


414  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

own  life.  They  had  indeed  been  so  for  three  years ;  and  through- 
out the  whole  contest  her  view  had  constantly  been  that  honor 
was  still  dearer  than  life ;  and  honor  she  identified  with  the  pres- 
ervation of  her  husband's  crown,  her  children's  inheritance.  Mi- 
rabeau  had  said  that  she  would  not  care  to  save  her  life  if  she 
could  not  save  the  crown  also ;  and,  though  she  can  not  have  de- 
cided without  a  terrible  conflict  of  feeling,  her  decision  was  now 
in  conformity  with  Mirabeau's  judgment  of  her.  In  the  preced- 
ing year  the  journey  to  Verennes  had  been  treated  by  the  Repub- 
licans as  a  plea  for  pronouncing  the  deposition  of  the  king ;  and, 
though  they  were  defeated  then,  they  were  undoubtedly  strong- 
er in  the  new  Assembly.  On  the  other  hand,  she  suspected  that 
they  themselves  had  some  misgivings  as  to  the  chance  of  a  sec- 
ond attack  on  the  palace  being  more  successful  than  the  former 
one  had  proved ;  and  that  the  openness  with  which  the  prepara- 
tions for  it  were  announced  was  intended  to  terrify  Louis  and 
herself  into  a  second  flight ;  and  she  might  not  unreasonably  in- 
fer that  what  their  enemies  desired  was  not  the  wisest  course  for 
them  to  adopt.  To  fly  would  evidently  be  to  leave  the  whole 
field  in  both  the  Assembly  and  the  city  open  to  their  enemies. 
It  might  save  their  lives,  but  it  would  almost  to  a  certainty  for- 
feit the  crown.  To  stay  and  face  the  coming  danger  might  in- 
deed lose  both,  but  it  might  also  save  both;  and  she  determined 
rather  to  risk  all,  both  crown  and  life,  in  the  endeavor  to  save  all, 
rather  than  to  save  the  one  by  the  deliberate  sacrifice  of  the  oth- 
er. It  was  a  gallant  and  unselfish  determination :  if  in  one  point 
of  view  it  was  unwise,  it  was  at  least  becoming  her  lofty  lineage, 
and  consistent  with  her  heroic  character. 


THE  KINO  WARNED  OF  THE  Ib'SVRRECTION. 


415 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

Preparation  for  a  New  Insurrection. — Barbarous  brings  up  a  Gang  from  Mar- 
seilles.— The  King's  last  Levee. — The  Assembly  rejects  a  Motion  for  the 
Impeachment  of  La  Fayette.  —  It  removes  some  Regiments  from  Paris. — 
Preparations  of  the  Court  for  Defense.  —  The  10th  of  August. — The  City 
is  in  Insurrection.  —  Murder  of  Mandat. — Louis  reviews  the  Guards. — He 
takes  Refuge  with  the  Assembly. — Massacre  of  the  Swiss  Guards. — Sack 
of  the  Tuileries.  — Discussions  in  the  Assembly. — The  Royal  Authority  is 
suspended. 

THE  die  was  cast.  Nothing  was  left  but  to  wait,  with  such 
patience  as  might  be,  for  the  coming  explosion,  which  was  sure 
not  to  be  long  deferred.  Madame  de  Stael  has  said  that  there 
never  can  be  a  conspiracy,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  in 
Paris;  and  that  if  there  could  be  one,  it  would  be  superfluous, 
since  every  one  at  all  times  follows  the  majority,  and  no  one 
ever  keeps  a  secret.  But  on  this  occasion  the  chief  movers  of 
sedition  studiously  discarded  all  appearance  of  concealment.  Ver- 
gniaud,  Guadet,  and  Gensonne  wrote  the  king  a  letter  couched 
in  terms  of  the  most  insolent  defiance,  and  signed  with  all  their 
names,  in  which  they  openly  announced  to  him  that  an  insurrec- 
tion was  organized  which  should  be  abandoned  if  he  replaced 
Roland  and  his  colleagues  in  the  ministry,  but  which  should  sure- 
ly break  on  the  palace  and  overwhelm  it  if  he  refused.  And 
Barbaroux,  who  had  promised  Madame  Roland  to  bring  up  from 
Marseilles  and  other  towns  in  the  south  a  band  of  men  capable 
of  any  atrocity,  had  collected  a  gang  of  five  hundred  miscreants, 
the  refuse  of  the  galleys  and  the  jails,  and  paraded  them  in  tri- 
umph through  the  streets,  which  their  arrival  was  destined  and 
intended  to  deluge  with  blood. 

And  yet  Louis,  or,  to  speak  more  correctly,  Marie  Antoinette, 
for  it  was  with  her  that  every  decision  rested,  preferred  to  face 
the  impending  struggle  in  Paris.  She  still  believed  that  the  king 
had  many  friends  in  whose  devotion  and  gallantry  he  could  con- 
fide to  the  very  death.  On  Sunday,  the  5th  of  August,  the  very 
last  Sunday  which  he  was  ever  to  behold  as  the  acknowledged 
sovereign  of  the  land,  his  levee  was  attended  by  a  more  than 


416  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

usually  numerous  and  brilliant  company ;  though  the  gayety  ap- 
propriate to  such  a  scene  was  on  this  occasion  clouded  over  by 
the  anxiety  for  their  royal  master  and  mistress  which  sobered  ev- 
ery one's  demeanor,  and  spread  a  gloom  over  every  countenance. 
And  three  days  later  both  the  Assembly  and  the  National  Guard 
displayed  feelings  which,  to  so  sanguine  a  temper  as  hers,  seemed 
to  show  a  disposition  to  make  a  stout  resistance  to  the  further 
progress  of  disorder.  The  Assembly,  by  a  majority  of  more  than 
two  to  one,  rejected  a  motion  made  by  Vergniaud  for  the  im- 
peachment of  La  Fayette  for  his  conduct  in  June  ;  and  when  the 
mob  fell  upon  those  who  had  voted  against  it,  as  they  came  out 
of  the  hall,  the  National  Guard  came  promptly  to  their  rescue, 
and  inflicted  severe  chastisement  on  the  foremost  of  the  rioters. 

The  vote  of  the  Assembly  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  last  it 
ever  gave  for  any  object  but  the  promotion  of  anarchy.  It  more 
than  neutralized  its  effect  the  very  next  day,  when  it  passed  a  de- 
cree for  the  immediate  removal  of  three  regiments  of  the  line 
which  were  quartered  in  Paris.  It  even  at  first  included  in  its 
resolution  the  Swiss  Guards  also ;  but  was  subsequently  compelled 
to  withdraw  that  clause,  since  an  old  treaty  with  Switzerland  ex- 
pressly secured  to  the  republic  the  right  of  always  furnishing  a 
regiment  for  the  honorable  service  of  guarding  the  palace.  And 
at  the  same  time,  as  if  to  punish  the  National  Guard  for  its  con- 
duct on  the  previous  day,  another  vote  broke  up  the  staff  of  that 
force ;  cashiered  its  finest  companies,  the  grenadiers  and  the 
mounted  troopers,  on  the  plea  that  such  distinctions  were  incon- 
sistent with  equality ;  and  filled  up  the  vacancies  with  men  who 
were  the  very  dregs  of  the  city,  many  of  whom  were,  in  fact,  se- 
cret agents  of  the  Jacobins,  by  whose  aid  they  hoped  to  spread 
disaffection  through  the  entire  force. 

The  afternoon  of  the  9th  was  passed  in  anxious  preparation  by 
both  the  conspirators  and  those  whom  they  were  about  to  attack. 
The  king  and  queen  were  not  destitute  of  faithful  adherents, 
whom  their  very  danger  only  rendered  the  more  zealous  to  place 
all  their  strength,  their  valor,  and,  as  they  truly  foreboded,  their 
lives,  at  the  disposal  of  their  honored  and  threatened  sovereigns. 
The  veteran  Marshal  de  Mailly,  one  of  those  gallant  nobles  whose 
devoted  loyalty  had  been  so  scandalously  insulted  by  La  Fayette* 
in  the  spring  of  the  preceding  year,  though  now  eighty  years  of 

*  See  ante. 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  RESISTANCE.  417 

age,  hastened  to  the  defense  of  his  royal  master  and  mistress,  and 
brought  with  him  a  chivalrous  phalanx  of  above  a  hundred  gen- 
tlemen, all  animated  with  the  same  self-sacrificing  heroism  as  his 
own,  to  fight,  or,  if  need  should  be,  to  die  for  their  king  and 
queen,  though  they  had  no  arms  but  their  swords.  It  seemed 
fortunate,  too,  that  the  command  of  the  National  Guard  for  the 
day  fell  by  rotation  to  an  officer  named  Mandat,  a  man  of  high 
professional  skill,  intrepid  courage,  and  unshaken  in  his  zeal  for 
the  royal  cause,  though  in  former  days  the  Constitutionalists  had 
reckoned  him  among  their  adherents.  His  brigade  numbered 
about  two  thousand  four  hundred  men,  on  most  of  whom  he 
could  thoroughly  rely.  And  it  was  no  slight  proof  of  his  force 
of  character  and  energy,  as  well  as  of  his  address,  that,  as  the 
National  Guard  could  not  be  employed  out  of  the  routine  of  their 
regular  duty  without  a  special  authorization  from  the  civil  power, 
he  contrived  to  extort  from  Petion,  as  mayor  of  the  city,  a  form- 
al authority  to  augment  his  brigade  for  the  special  occasion,  and, 
if.  force  should  be  used  against  him,  to  repel  it  by  force. 

The  Swiss  Guard  of  about  a  thousand  men  were  all  trustwor- 
thy ;  and  there  was  also  a  small  body  of  heavy  cavalry  .of  .the  gen- 
darmery  who  had  proved  true  enough  to  resist  all  .the  seductions 
of  the  conspirators.  There  were  likewise  a  few  cannon.  In  all, 
nearly  four  thousand  men  could  be  mustered  for  the  defense  of 
the  palace ;  a  force,  if  well  equipped  and  well  led,  not  inadequate 
to  the  task  of  holding  it  out  for  some  time  against  any  num- 
ber of  undisciplined  assailants.  But  they  were  not  well  armed. 
They  were  nearly  destitute  of  ammunition,  and  Mandat's  most 
vehement  entreaties  and  remonstrances  could  not  wring  out  from 
Petion  an  order  for  a  supply  of  cartridges,  though,  as  he  told 
him,  several  companies  had  not  four  rounds  left,  some  had  only 
one ;  and  though  it  was  notorious  that  the  police  had  served  out 
ammunition  to  the  Marseillese,  who  had  no  claim  to  a  single  bullet. 
Still  less  were  they  well  led ;  for  at  such  a  crisis  every  thing  de- 
pended on  the  king's  example,  and  Louis  was  utterly  wanting  to 
himself. 

As  night  approached,  the  agitation  in  the  palace,  and  still  more 
in  the  city,  grew  more  and  more  intense.  It  was  a  brilliant  and 
a  warm  night.  By  ten  o'clock  the  mob  began  to  cluster  in  the 
streets,  many  only  curious  and  anxious  from  uncertain  fear ;  those 
in  the  secret  hastening  toward  the  point  of  rendezvous.  The  riot- 
ers also  had  cannon,  and  by  eleven  their  artillery-men  had  taken 

27 


418  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

charge  of  their  guns.  The  conspirators  had  got  possession  of  all 
the  churches ;  and  as  the  hour  of  midnight  struck,  a  single  can- 
non-shot gave  the  signal,  and  from  every  steeple  and  tower  in  the 
city  the  fatal  tocsin  began  to  peal.  The  insurrection  was  begun. 

Petion,  who,  from  some  motive  which  is  not  very  intelligible, 
wished  to  save  appearances,  and  who,  though  in  fact  he  had  been 
eager  in  promoting  the  insurrection,  pretended  innocence  of  all . 
complicity  in  it  even  to  the  Assembly,  whom  he  was  aware  that 
he  was  not  deceiving,  on  the  first  sound  of  the  bells  repaired  to 
the  Hotel  de  Ville.  He  found,  as  indeed  he  was  aware  that  he 
should  find,  a  strange  addition  to  the  Municipal  Council.  The 
majority  of  the  sections  of  the  city  had  declared  themselves  in 
insurrection;  had  passed  resolutions  that  they  would  no  longer 
obey  the  existing  magistrates ;  and  had  appointed  a  body  of  com- 
missioners to  overbear  them,  trusting  in  the  cowardice  of  the  ma- 
jority, and  in  the  willing  acquiescence  and  co-operation  of  Danton 
and  the  other  members  of  the  party  of  violence.  The  commis- 
sioners seized  on  a  room  in  the  H6tel  by  the  side  of  the  regular 
council-room,  and  their  first  measures  were  marked  with  a  cun- 
ning and  unscrupulousness  which  largely  contributed  to  the  suc- 
cess of  their  more  active  comrades  in  the  streets.  Even  Petion 
himself  was  not  wicked  enough  or  resolute  enough  for  them. 
The  authority  which  Mandat  had  wrung  from  him  on  the  pre- 
vious morning  was,  in  their  eyes,  a  proof  of  unpardonable  weak- 
ness. He  might  be  terrified  into  issuing  some  other  order  which 
might  disconcert  or  at  least  impede  their  plans ;  and  accordingly 
they  put  him  under  a  kind  of  honorable  arrest,  and  sent  him  to 
his  own  house  under  the  guard  of  an  armed  force,  which  was  in- 
structed to  allow  no  one  access  to  him ;  and  at  the  same  time 
they  sent  an  order  in  his  name  to  Mandat  to  repair  to  the  H6tel 
de  Ville,  to  concert  with  them  the  measures  necessary  for  the 
safety  of  the  city. 

Had  he  acted  on  his  own  judgment,  Mandat  would  have  disre- 
garded the  summons ;  but  M.  Roederer  urged  upon  him  that  he 
was  bound  to  comply  with  an  order  brought  in  the  name  of  the 
mayor.  Accordingly  he  repaired  to  the  H6tel  de  Ville,  and  gave 
to  the  Municipal  Council  so  distinct  an  account  of  his  measures, 
and  of  his  reason  for  taking  them,  that,  though  Danton  and  some 
of  his  more  factious  colleagues  reproached  him  for  exhibiting 
what  they  called  a  needless  distrust  of  the  people,  the  majority 
of  the  Council  approved  of  his  conduct,  and  dismissed  him  to  re- 


MURDER  OF  MANDAT.  419 

turn  to  his  duties.  But  as  he  quit  their  chamber,  he  was  dragged 
before  the  other  body,  the  Commissioners  of  the  Sections,*  and 
subjected  to  another  examination,  which,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
they  conducted  with  every  kind  of  insult  and  violence.  The  Mu- 
nicipal Council  sent  down  a  deputation  to  remonstrate  with  them; 
they  rose  on  the  Council  and  expelled  them  from  their  own  coun- 
cil-chamber by  main  force,  and  then  sent  off  Mandat  to  prison, 
whither,  a  few  minutes  later,  they  dispatched  a  gang  of  assassins 
to  murder  him. 

The  news  of  his  death  soon  reached  the  Tuileries,  where  it 
struck  a  chill  even  into  the  firm  heart  of  the  queen,f  who  had 
deservedly  placed  great  reliance  on  his  fidelity  and  resolution. 
She  had  now  to  trust  to  the  valor  and  loyalty  of  the  troops 
themselves,  though  thus  deprived  of  their  commander ;  and,  as  a 
last  hope,  she  persuaded  the  king  to  go  down  and  review  them, 
hoping  that  his  presence  might  animate  the  faithful,  and  perhaps 
fix  the  waverers.  Louis  consented,  as  he  would  have  consented 
to  any  course  that  was  recommended  to  him ;  but  on  such  occa- 
sions more  depends  on  the  grace  and  spirit  with  which  a  thing  is 
done  than  on  the  act  itself,  and  grace  and  spirit  were  now  less 
than  ever  to  be  looked  for  in  the  unhappy  Louis.  He  visited 
first  the  courts  of  the  palace,  and  the  Carrousel,  and  then  the  gar- 
dens, at  whose  different  entrances  strong  detachments  of  troops 
were  stationed.  When  he  first  appeared  he  was  greeted  by  one 
general  cheer  of  "  Vive  le  roi !"  But  as  he  passed  along  the  ranks 
the  unanimity  and  loyalty  began  to  disappear.  Even  of  those 
regiments  which  were  still  true  to  him  the  cheers  were  faint,  as 

*  "  Histoire  de  la  Terreur,"  par  Mortimer  Ternaux,  ii.,  p.  269.  For  the 
transactions  of  this  day,  and  of  the  following  months,  he  is  by  far  the  most 
trustworthy  guide,  as  having  had  access  to  official  documents  of  which  earlier 
writers  were  ignorant.  But  he  admits  the  extreme  difficulty  of  ascertaining 
the  precise  details  and  time  of  each  event.  And  it  is  not  easy  in  every  in- 
stance  to  reconcile  his  account  with  that  of  Madame  de  Campan,  on  whom  for 
many  particulars  he  greatly  relies.  He  differs  from  her  especially  as  to  the 
hour  at  which  the  different  occurrences  of  this  day  took  place.  For  instance, 
he  says  (p.  268,  note  2)  that  Mandat  left  the  Tuileries  a  little  after  five,  while 
Madame  de  Campan  says  it  was  four  o'clock  when  the  queen  told  her  he  had 
been  murdered.  Both,  however,  agree  that  it  was  soon  after  eight  o'clock 
when  the  king  left  the  palace. 

-  f  "  A  quatre  heures  la  reine  sortit  de  la  chambre  du  roi,  et  vint  nous  dire 
qu'elle  n'esperait  plus  rien ;  que  M.  Mandat  venait  d'etre  assassine." — MA- 
DAME DE  CAHPAN,  ch.  x xi. 


420  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

if  half  suppressed  by  alarm ;  while  many  companies  mingled 
shouts  for  "  the  nation "  with  those  for  himself,  and  individual 
soldiers  murmured  audibly,  "  Down  with  the  Veto !"  or,  "  Long 
live  the  Sans-culottes !"  secure  that  their  officers  would  not  vent- 
ure to  reprove,  much  less  to  chastise  them.  The  Swiss  Guard 
alone  showed  enthusiasm  in  their  loyalty  and  resolution  in  their 
demeanor. 

But  when  he  reached  the  artillery,  on  whom  perhaps  most  de- 
pended, many  of  the  gunners  made  no  secret  of  their  disaffection. 
Some  even  quit  their  ranks  to  offer  him  personal  insults,  dou- 
bling their  fists  in  his  face,  and  shouting  out  the  coarsest  threats 
which  the  Revolution  had  yet  taught  them.  Both  cheers  and  in- 
sults the  hapless  king  received  with  almost  equal  apathy.  The 
despair  which  was  in  his  heart  was  shown  in  his  dress,  which  had 
no  military  character  or  decoration,  but  was  a  suit  of  plain  violet 
such  as  was  never  worn  by  kings  of  France  but  on  occasions  of 
mourning.  It  was  to  no  purpose  that  the  queen  put  a  sword 
into  his  hand,  and  exhorted  him  to  take  the  command  of  the 
troops  himself,  and  to  show  himself  ready  to  fight  in  person  for 
his  crown.  It  was  only  once  or  twice  that  he  could  even  be 
brought  to  utter  a  few  words  of  acknowledgment  to  those  who 
treated  him  with  respect,  of  expostulation  to  those  who  insulted 
and  threatened  him ;  and  presently,  pale,  and,  as  it  seemed,  ex- 
hausted with  that  slight  effort,  he  returned  to  his  apartments. 

The  queen  was  almost  in  despair.  She  told  Madame  de  Cam- 
pan  that  all  was  lost ;  that  the  king  had  shown  no  energy ;  that 
such  a  review  as  that  had  done  harm  rather  than  good.  All  that 
could  now  be  done  was  for  her  to  show  herself  not  wanting  to 
the  occasion,  nor  to  him.  Her  courage  rose  with  the  imminence 
of  the  danger.  Those  who  beheld  her,  as  with  dilating  eyes  and 
heightened  color  she  listened  to  the  unceasing  tumult,  and,  re- 
pressing every  appearance  of  alarm,  strove  with  unabated  energy 
to  rouse  her  husband,  and  to  fortify  the  good  disposition  of  the 
loyal  friends  around  her,  have  described  in  terms  of  enthusiastic 
admiration  the  majestic  dignity  of  her  demeanor  at  this  trying 
moment.  She  had  need  of  all  her  presence  of  mind ;  for  even 
among  those  who  were  most  faithful  to  her  dissensions  were 
springing  up.  At  the  first  alarm  Marshal  de  Mailly  and  his  com- 
pany of  gallant  nobles  and  gentlemen  had  hastened  to  her  side ; 
but  the  National  Guards  were  jealous  of  them.  It  seemed  as  if 
they  expected  to  be  allowed  to  remain  nearest  to  the  royal  per- 


THE  INSURGENTS  UNDER  SANTERRE.  421 

son ;  and  the  soldiers  disdained  to  yield  the  post  of  honor  to  men 
who  were  not  in  uniform,  and  whom,  as  they  were  mostly  in 
court  dress,  they  even  disliked  as  aristocrats.  They  besought  the 
queen  to  dismiss  them.  "  Never !"  she  replied ;  and,  trusting 
rather  that  the  example  of  their  self-sacrificing  devotion  might 
stimulate  those  who  thus-  complained,  and  full  of  that  royal  mag- 
nanimity which  feels  that  it  confers  honor  on  those  whom  it 
trusts,  and  that  it  has  a  right  to  look  for  the  loyalty  of  its  serv- 
ants even  to  the  death,  she  added,  "  They  will  serve  with  you,  and 
share  your  dangers.  They  will  fight  with  you  in  the  van,  in  the 
rear,  where  you  will.  They  will  show  you  how  men  can  die  for 
their  king." 

But  meanwhile  the  insurgents  were  rapidly  approaching  the 
palace,  and  already  the  tramp  of  the  leading  column  might  be 
heard.  The  tocsin  had  continued  its  ominous  sound  throughout 
the  night,  and  at  six  in  the  morning  the  main  body  of  the  insur- 
gents, twenty  thousand  strong,  and  well  armed — for  the  new  coun- 
cil had  opened  to  them  the  stores  of  the  arsenal  —  began  their 
march  under  the  command  of  Santerre.  As  they  advanced  they 
were  joined  by  the  Marseillese,  who  had  been  quartered  in  a  bar- 
rack near  the  Hall  of  the  Cordeliers,  and  their  numbers  were  fur- 
ther swelled  by  thousands  of  the  populace.  Soon  after  eight 
they  reached  the  Carrousel,  forced  the  gates,  and  pressed  on  to 
the  royal  court,  the  National  Guard  and  Swiss  falling  back  before 
them  to  the  entrance  to  the  royal  apartments,  where  the  more 
confined  space  seemed  to  afford  a  better  prospect  of  making  an 
effectual  resistance. 

But  already  the  palace  was  deserted  by  those  who  were  the  in- 
tended objects  of  the  attack.  Roederer,  and  one  or  two  of  the 
municipal  magistrates,  in  whom  the  indignity  with  which  the 
new  commissioners  of  the  sections  had  treated  them  had  excited 
a  feeling  of  personal  indignation,  had  been  actively  endeavoring 
to  rouse  the  National  Guards  to  an  energetic  resistance ;  but  they 
had  wholly  failed.  Those  who  listened  to  them  most  favorably 
would  only  promise  to  defend  themselves  if  attacked,  while  some 
of  the  artillery-men  drew  the  charges  from  their  guns  and  extin- 
guished their  matches.  Roederer,  whom  the  strange  vicissitudes 
of  the  crisis  had  for  the  moment  rendered  the  king's  chief  ad- 
viser, though  there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  his  good  faith,  was 
not  a  man  of  that  fiery  courage  which  hopes  against  hope,  and 
can  stimulate  waverere  by  its  example.  He  saw  that  if  the  riot- 


422  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

ers  should  succeed  in  storming  the  palace,  and  should  find  the 
king  and  his  family  there,  the  moment  that  made  them  masters 
of  their  persons  would  be  the  last  of  their  lives  and  of  the  mon- 
archy. He  returned  into  the  palace  to  represent  to  Louis  the  utter 
hopelessness  of  making  any  defense,  and  to  recommend  him,  as 
his  sole  resource,  to  claim  the  protection  of  the  Assembly.  The 
queen,  who,  to  use  her  own  words,  would  have  preferred  being 
nailed  to  the  walls  of  the  palace  to  seeking  a  refuge  which  she 
deemed  degrading,  pointed  to  the  soldiers,  and  showed  by  her 
gestures  that  they  were  the  only  protectors  whom  it  became  them 
to  look  to.  Roederer  assured  her  that  they  could  not  be  relied 
on.  She  seemed  unconvinced.  He  almost  forgot  his  respect  in 
his  earnestness.  "  If  you  refuse,  madame,  you  will  be  guilty  of 
the  blood  of  the  king,  of  your  two  children ;  you  will  destroy 
yourself,  and  every  soul  within  the  palace."  While  she  was  still 
hesitating  between  her  feeling  of  shame  and  her  anxiety  for  those 
dearest  to  her,  the  king  gave  the  word.  "  Let  us  go,"  said  he. 
"  Let  us  give  this  last  proof  of  our  devotion  to  the  Constitution." 
The  princess  spoke.  "Could  Roederer  answer  for  the  king's 
life?"  He  affirmed  that  he  would  answer  for  it  with  his  own. 
The  queen  repeated  the  question.  "  Madame,"  he  replied,  "  we 
will  answer  for  dying  at  your  side — that  is  all  that  we  can  prom- 
ise." "  Let  us  go,"  said  Louis,  and  moved  toward  the  door. 
Even  at  the  last  moment,  one  officer,  M.  Boscari,  commander  of  a 
battalion  of  the  National  Guard,  known  as  that  of  Les  Filles  St. 
Thomas,  whose  loyalty  no  disaster  had  ever  been  able  to  shake, 
implored  him  to  change  his  mind.  His  men,  united  to  the  Swiss, 
would  be  able,  he  said,  to  cut  a  way  for  the  royal  family  to  the 
Rouen  road ;  the  insurgents  were  all  on  the  other  side  of  the  city, 
and  nothing  could  resist  him.  But  again,  as  on  all  previous  oc- 
casions, Louis  rejected  the  brave  advice.  He  pleaded  the  risk  to 
which  he  should  expose  those  dearest  to  him,  and  led  them  to 
almost  certain  death  in  committing  them  to  the  Assembly.  Some 
of  De  Mailly's  gentlemen  gathered  round  him  to  accompany  him ; 
but  such  an  escort  seemed  to  Roederer  likely  to  provoke  addi- 
tional animosity,  and  at  his  entreaty  Louis  trusted  himself  to  a 
company  of  his  faithful  Swiss  and  to  a  detachment  of  the  Na- 
tional Guard,  who  formed  themselves  into  an  escort  to  conduct 
him  to  the  Assembly,  whose  hall  looked  into  one  side  of  the 
palace  garden. 

The  minister  for  foreign  affairs  walked  at  his  side.     The  queen 


CONDUCT  OF  THE  ASSEMBLY.  423 

leaned  on  the  arm  of  M.  Dubouchage,  the  minister  of  marine,  and 
with  the  other  hand  led  the  dauphin.  The  Princess  Elizabeth 
and  the  princess  royal  followed  with  another  minister.  And 
thus,  with  the  Princess  de  Lamballe,  Madame  de  Tourzel,  and  one 
or  two  other  ministers  and  attendants,  the  royal  family  left  the 
palace  of  their  ancestors,  which  only  one  of  them  was  ever  to 
behold  again.  As  they  quit  the  saloon,  moved  down  the  stairs, 
and  crossed  the  garden,  their  every  step  was  one  toward  a  down- 
fall and  a  destruction  which  could  never  be  retraced.  Marie  An- 
toinette felt  it  to  be  so,  and,  as  she  reached  the  foot  of  the  stair- 
case, cast  restless  and  anxious  glances  around,  looking  perhaps 
even  then  for  any  prospect  of  succor  or  of  effectual  resistance 
which  might  present  itself.  One  of  the  Swiss  misunderstood 
her,  and  with  rude  fidelity  endeavored  to  encourage  her.  "  Fear 
nothing,  madame,"  said  he,  "  your  majesty  is  surrounded  by  hon- 
est citizens."  She  laid  her  hand  on  her  heart.  "  I  do  fear  noth- 
ing," and  passed  on  without  another  word. 

As  they  crossed  the  garden  the  king  broke  the  silence.  "  How 
unusually  early,"  he  remarked,  "  the  leaves  fall  this  year !"  To 
those  who  heard  him,  the  bareness  which  he  remarked  seemed  an 
omen  of  the  fate  which  awaited  himself,  about  to  be  stripped  of 
his  royal  dignity;  perhaps  even,  like  some  superfluous  crowder  of 
the  grove,  to  fall  beneath  the  axe.  The  Assembly  had  already 
been  deliberating  whether  it  should  invite  him  to  take  refuge 
with  them  when  they  heard  that  he  was  approaching.  It  was 
instantly  voted  that  a  deputation  should  be  sent  to  meet  him, 
which,  after  a  few  words  of  respectful  salutation,  fell  in  behind. 
A  vast  crowd  was  collected  outside  the  doors  of  the  hall.  They 
hooted  the  king,  and,  still  more  bitterly,  the  queen,  as  they  ad- 
vanced. "  Down  with  Veto !"  was  the  chief  cry ;  but  mingled 
with  it  were  still  more  unmanly  insults,  invoking  more  especially 
death  on  all  the  women.  But  the  Guards  kept  the  mob  at  a  dis- 
tance, though  when  they  reached  the  hall  the  Jacobins  made  an 
effort  to  deprive  them  of  that  protection.  They  declared  that  it 
was  illegal  for  soldiers  to  enter  the  hall,  as  indeed  it  was;  yet 
without  them  the  princes  must  at  the  last  moment  have  been  ex- 
posed to  all  the  fury  of  the  mob.  At  this  critical  moment  Roe- 
derer  showed  both  fidelity  and  presence  of  mind.  He  implored 
the  deputies  to  suspend  the  law  which  forbade  the  entrance  of 
the  troops,  and,  while  the  Jacobins  were  reviling  him  and  his 
proposal,  he  pretended  to  suppose  that  it  had  been  agreed  to, 


424  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

and  led  forward  a  detachment  of  soldiers  who  cleared  the  way. 
One  grenadier  took  up  the  dauphin  in  his  arms  and  carried  him 
in ;  and,  although  the  pressure  of  the  crowd  was  extreme,  at  last 
the  whole  family  were  placed  within  the  hall  in  such  safety  as  the 
Assembly  was  able  or  disposed  to  afford  them. 

Louis  bore  himself  not  without  dignity.  His  words  were  few 
but  calm.  "  I  am  come  here  to  prevent  a  great  crime.  I  think  I 
can  not  be  better  placed,  nor  more  safely,  gentlemen,  than  among 
you."  The  president,  who  happened  to  be  Vergniaud,  while  ap- 
pearing to  desire  to  give  him  confidence,  yet  avoided  uttering  a 
single  word,  except  the  simple  address  of  "  sire,"  which  should 
be  a  recognition  of  the  royal  dignity,  if  indeed  his  speech  was 
not  a  studied  disavowal  of  it.  Louis  might  reckon,  he  said,  on 
the  firmness  of  the  National  Assembly :  its  members  had  sworn 
to  die  in  support  of  the  rights  of  the  people  and  of  the  consti- 
tuted authorities :  and  then,  on  the  plea  that  the  Assembly  must 
continue  its  deliberations,  and  that  the  law  forbade  them  to  be 
conducted  in  the  presence  of  the  sovereign,  he  assigned  him  and 
his  family  a  little  box  behind  the  president's  chair,  which  was 
usually  set  apart  for  the  reporters  of  the  debates.  A  Jacobin 
deputy  proposed  their  removal  into  one  of  the  committee-rooms, 
with  the  idea,  as  he  afterward  boasted,  that  it  would  be  easy 
there  to  admit  a  band  of  assassins  to  murder  them  all ;  but  Ver- 
gniaud and  his  party  divined  his  object  and  overruled  him.  It 
might  seem  that  the  Girondins,  though  they  had  been  the  original 
promoters  aud  chief  organizers  of  the  insurrection,  were  as  yet 
disposed  to-  be  content  with  the  overthrow  of  the  throne,  and  had 
not  arrived  at  the  hardihood  which  can  not  be  sated  without 
murder ;  and  it  is  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  rapidity  with 
which  unprincipled  men  sink  deeper  and  deeper  into  iniquity, 
that  they  who  now  exerted  themselves  successfully  to  save  the 
life  of  Louis,  five  months  afterward  were  as  unanimous  as  the 
most  ferocious  Jacobins  in  destroying  him. 

One  object  of  Louis  in  abandoning  his  palace  had  been  to  save 
the  lives  of  the  National  Guards  and  of  the  Swiss,  by  withdraw- 
ing them  from  what  he  regarded  as  an  unequal  combat  with  the 
infuriated  multitude ;  and  of  the  National  Guard  the  greater  part 
did  escape,  drawing  off  silently  in  small  detachments,  when  the 
sovereign  whom  it  had  been  their  duty  to  defend,  seemed  no 
longer  to  require  their  service.  But  the  Swiss  remained  bravely 
at  their  posts  around  the  royal  staircase,  though,  as  they  abstain- 


BRAVERY  OF  THE  SWISS  GUARDS.  425 

ed  from  provoking  the  rioters  by  any  active  opposition,  which 
now  seemed  to  have  no  object,  they  hoped  that  they  might  es- 
cape attack.  But  the  mob  and  Santerre  were  bent  on  their  de- 
struction. Some  of  the  insurgents  tried  to  provoke  them  by 
threats.  Some  endeavored  to  tamper  with  them  to  desert  their 
allegiance.  But  an  accidental  interruption  suddenly  terminated 
their  brief  period  of  inaction.  In  the  confusion  a  pistol  went  off, 
and  the  Swiss  fancied  it  was  meant  as  a  signal  for  an  assault  upon 
them.  Thinking  that  the  time  was  come  to  defend  their  own 
lives,  they  leveled  their  muskets  and  fired :  they  charged  down 
the  steps,  driving  the  insurgents  before  them  like  sheep ;  they 
cleared  the  inner  or  royal  court,  forced  their  way  into  the  Car- 
rousel, recovered  the  cannon  which  were  posted  in  the  large 
square,  and  were  so  completely  victorious  that,  had  there  been 
any  superior  officer  at  hand  to  direct  their  movements,  they  might 
even  now  have  checked  the  insurrection. 

.  There  might  even  have  been  some  hope  had  not  Louis  himself 
actually  interfered  to  check  their  exertions.  Hearing  what  they 
had  accomplished,  the  gallant  D'Hervilly  made  his  way  to  them, 
and  called  on  them  to  follow  him  to  the  rescue  of  the  king. 
They  hesitated,  unwilling  to  leave  their  wounded  comrades  to  the 
mercy  of  their  enemies ;  but  their  hesitation  was  brief,  for  it  was 
put  an  end  to  by  the  wounded  men  themselves,  who  bid  them 
hasten  forward ;  their  duty,  they  told  them,  was  to  save  the  king ; 
for  themselves,  they  could  but  die  where  they  lay.*  There  were 
still  plenty  of  gallant  spirits  to  do  their  duty  to  the  king,  if  he 
could  but  have  been  persuaded  to  take  a  right  view  of  his  duty  to 
himself  and  to  them. 

The  Swiss  gladly  obeyed  D'Hervilly's  summons.  Forming  in 
close  order,  and  as  steady  as  on  parade,  they  marched  through  the 
garden,  one  battalion  moving  toward  the  end  opposite  to  the  pal- 
ace, where  there  was  a  draw-bridge  which  it  was  essential  to  se- 
cure ;  the  other  following  D'Hervilly  to  the  Assembly  hall.  Noth- 
ing could  resist  their  advance :  they  forced  their  way  up  the  stairs ; 
and  in  a  few  moments  a  young  officer,  M.  de  Salis,  at  the  head  of 
a  small  detachment,  sword  in  hand,  entered  the  chamber.  Some 
of  the  deputies  shrieked  and  fled,  while  others,  more  calm,  remind- 
ed him  that  armed  men  were  forbidden  to  enter  the  hall,  and  or- 
dered him  to  retire.  He  refused,  and  sent  his  subaltern  to  the 

•  "  La  Terreur,"  viii.,  p.  4. 


426  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

king  for  orders.  But  Louis  still  held  to  his  strange  policy  of  non- 
resistance.  Even  the  terrible  scenes  of  the  morning,  and  the  de- 
liberate attack  of  an  armed  mob  upon  his  palace,  had  failed  to 
eradicate  his  unwillingness  to  authorize  his  own  Guards  to  fight 
in  his  behalf,  or  to  convince  him  that  when  his  throne  (perhaps 
even  his  life  and  the  lives  of  all  his  family)  was  at  stake,  it  was 
nobler  to  struggle  for  victory,  and,  if  defeated,  to  die  with  arms 
in  his  hands,  than  tamely  to  sit  still  and  be  stripped  of  his  kingly 
dignity  by  brigands  and  traitors.  Could  he  but  have  summoned 
energy  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  his  faithful  Guards,  as  we 
may  be  sure  that  his  brave  wife  urged  him  to  do ;  could  he  have 
even  sent  them  one  encouraging  order,  one  cheering  word,  there 
still  might  have  been  hope ;  for  they  had  already  proved  that  no 
number  of  Santerre's  ruffians  could  stand  before  them.*  But 
Louis  could  not  even  now  bring  himself  to  act ;  he  could  only 
suffer.  His  command  to  the  officer,  the  last  he  ever  issued,  was 
for  the  whole  battalion  to  lay  down  their  arms,  to  evacuate  the 
palace,  and  to  retire  to  their  barracks.  He  would  not,  he  said, 
that  such  brave  men  should  die.  They  knew  that  in  fact  he  was 
consigning  them  to  death  without  honor ;  but  they  were  loyal  to 
the  last.  They  obeyed,  though  their  obedience  to  the  first  part 
of  the  order  rendered  the  last  part  impracticable.  They  laid  down 
their  arms,  and  were  at  once  made  prisoners ;  and  the  fate  of  pris- 
oners in  such  hands  as  those  of  their  captors  was  certain.  A  small 
handful,  consisting,  it  is  said,  of  fourteen  men,  escaped  through  the 
courage  of  one  or  two  friends,  who  presently  brought  them  plain 
clothes  to  exchange  for  their  uniforms,  but  before  night  all  the 
rest  were  massacred. 

Not  more  fortunate  were  their  comrades  of  the  other  battalion, 
except  in  falling  by  a  more  soldier-like  death.  Though  no  long- 
er supported  by  the  detachment  under  D'Hervilly,  they  succeeded 
in  forcing  their  way  to  the  draw-bridge.  It  was  held  by  a  strong 
detachment  of  the  National  Guard,  who  ought  to  have  received 
them  as  comrades,  but  who  had  now  caught  the  contagion  of  suc- 
cessful treason,  and  fired  on  them  as  they  advanced.  But  the  gal- 

*  It  is  clear  that  this  is  the  opinion  formed  by  M.  Mortimer  Ternaux.  He 
sums  up  the  fourth  chapter  of  his  eighth  book  with  the  conclusion  that  "  le 
palais  de  la  royaute  ne  fut  pas  enlev6  de  vive  force,  mais  abandonnd  par  or- 
dre  de  Louis  XVI."  And  in  a  note  he  affirms  that  the  entire  number  of 
killed  and  wounded  on  the  part  of  the  rioters  did  not  exceed  one  hundred 
and  sixty  "  en  chiffres  ronds." 


MASSACRE  OF  THE  SWISS.  427 

lant  Swiss,  in  spite  of  their  diminished  numbers  still  invincible, 
charged  through  them,  forced  their  way  across  the  bridge  into  the 
Place  Louis  XV.,  and  there  formed  themselves  into  square,  re- 
solved to  sell  their  lives  dearly.  It  was  all  that  was  left  to  them 
to  do.  The  mounted  gendarmery,  too,  came  up  and  turned  against 
them.  Hemmed  in  on  all  sides,  they  fell  one  after  another ;  Lou- 
is, who  had  refused  to  let  them  die  for  him,  having  only  given 
their  death  the  additional  pang  that  it  had  been  of  no  service  to 
him. 

The  retreat  of  the  king  had  left  the  Tuileries  at  the  mercy  of 
the  rioters.  Furious  to  find  that  he  had  escaped  them,  they  wreaked 
their  rage  on  the  lifeless  furniture,  breaking,  hewing,  and  destroy- 
ing in  every  way  that  wantonness  or  malice  could  devise.  Differ- 
ent articles  which  had  belonged  to  the  queen  were  the  especial  ob- 
jects of  their  wrath.  Crowds  of  the  vilest  women  arrayed  them- 
selves in  her  dresses,  or  defiled  her  bed.  Her  looking-glasses  were 
broken,  with  imprecations,  because  they  had  reflected  her  features. 
Her  footmen  were  pursued  and  slaughtered  because  they  had  been 
wont  to  obey  her.  Nor  were  the  monsters  who  slew  them  con- 
tented with  murder.  They  tore  the  dead  bodies  into  pieces ;  de- 
voured the  still  bleeding  fragments,  or  deliberately  lighted  fires 
and  cooked  them ;  or,  hoisting  the  severed  limbs  on  pikes,  carried 
them  in  fiendish  triumph  through  the  streets. 

And  while  these  horrors  were  going  on  in  the  palace,  the  tumult 
in  the  Assembly  was  scarcely  less  furious.  The  majority  of  the 
members — all,  indeed,  except  the  Girondins  and  Jacobins,  who  were 
secure  in  their  alliance  with  the  ringleaders — were  panic-stricken. 
Many  fled,  but  the  rest  sat  still,  and  in  terrified  helplessness  voted 
whatever  resolutions  the  fiercest  of  the  king's  enemies  chose  to 
propose.  It  was  an  ominous  preliminary  to  their  deliberations 
that  they  admitted  a  deputation  from  the  commissioners  of  the 
sections  into  the  hall,  where  Guadet,  to  whom  Vergniaud  had  sur- 
rendered the  president's  chair,  thanked  them  for  their  zeal,  and  as- 
sured them  that  the  Assembly  regarded  them  as  virtuous  citizens 
only  anxious  for  the  restoration  of  peace  and  order.  They  were 
even  formally  recognized  as  the  Municipal  Council ;  and  then,  on 
the  motion  of  Vergniaud,  the  Assembly  passed  a  series  of  resolu- 
tions, ordering  the  suspension  of  Louis  from  all  authority ;  his 
confinement  in  the  Luxembourg  Palace;  the  dismissal  and  im- 
peachment of  his  ministers;  the  re-appointment  of  Roland  and 


428  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

those  of  his  colleagues  whom  he  had  dismissed,  and  the  immedi- 
ate election  of  a  National  Convention.  A  large  pecuniary  reward 
was  even  voted  for  the  Marseillese,  and  for  similar  gangs  from 
one  or  two  other  departments  which  had  been  brought  up  to 
Paris  to  take  a  part  in  the  insurrection. 

Yet  so  deeply  seated  were  hope  and  confidence  in  the  queen's 
heart,  so  sanguine  was  her  trust  that  out  of  the  mutual  enmity  of 
the  populace  and  the  Assembly  safety  would  still  be  wrought  for 
the  king  and  the  monarchy,  that  even  while  the  din  of  battle  was 
raging  outside  the  hall,  and  inside  deputy  after  deputy  was  rising 
to  heap  insults  on  the  king  and  on  herself,  or  to  second  Vergni- 
aud's  resolutions  for  his  formal  degradation,  she  could  still  be- 
lieve that  the  tide  was  about  to  turn  in  her  favor.  While  the  up- 
roar was  at  its  height  she  turned  to  D'Hervilly,  who  still  kept  his 
post,  faithful  and  fearless,  at  his  master's  side.  "  Well,  M.  d'Her- 
villy,"  said  she,  with  an  air,  as  M.  Bertrand,  who  tells  the  story,  de- 
scribes it,  of  the  most  perfect  security,  "  did  we  not  do  well  not 
to  leave  Paris  ?"  "  I  pray  God,"  said  the  brave  noble,  "  that  your 
majesty  may  be  able  to  ask  me  the  same  question  in  six  months' 
time."*  His  foreboding  was  truer  than  her  hopes.  In  less  than 
six  months  she  was  a  desolate,  imprisoned  widow,  helplessly  await- 
ing her  own  fate  from  her  husband's  murderers. 

All  these  resolutions  of  Vergniaud,  all  the  ribald  abuse  with 
which  different  members  supported  them,  the  unhappy  sovereigns 
were  condemned  to  hear  in  the  narrow  box  to  which  they  had 
been  removed.  They  bore  the  insults,  the  queen  with  her  ha- 
bitual dignity,  the  king  with  his  inveterate  apathy ;  Louis  even 
speaking  occasionally  with  apparent  cheerfulness  to  some  of  the 
deputies.  The  constant  interruptions  protracted  the  discussions 
through  the  entire  day.  It  was  half-past  three  in  the  morning 
before  the  Assembly  adjourned,  when  the  king  and  his  family 
were  removed  to  the  adjacent  Convent  of  the  Feuillants,  where 
four  wretched  cells  had  been  hastily  furnished  with  camp-beds, 
and  a  few  other  necessaries  of  the  coarsest  description.  So  little 
was  any  attempt  made  to  disguise  the  fact  that  they  were  prison- 
ers, that  their  own  domestic  servants  were  not  allowed  the  next 
day  to  attend  them  till  they  had  received  a  formal  ticket  of  ad- 
mittance from  the  president.  Yet  even  in  this  extremity  of  dis- 

*  Bertrand  de  Moleville,  ch.  xxvii. 


THE  KINO  AND   QUEEN  PRISONERS.  429 

tress  Marie  Antoinette  thought  of  others  rather  than  of  herself; 
and  when  at  last  her  faithful  attendant,  Madame  de  Carapan,  ob- 
tained access  to  her,  her  first  words  expressed  how  greatly  her 
own  sorrows  were  aggravated  by  the  thought  that  she  had  in- 
volved in  them  those  loyal  friends  whose  attachment  merited  a 
very  different  recompense.* 

*  Madame  de  Campan,  ch.  xii. 


430  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIIL 

Indignities  to  which  the  Royal  Family  are  subjected. — They  are  removed  to 
the  Temple. — Divisions  in  the  Assembly. — Flight  of  La  Fayette. — Advance 
of  the  Prussians. — Lady  Sutherland  supplies  the  Dauphin  with  Clothes. — 
Mode  of  Life  in  the  Temple. — The  Massacres  of  September. — The  Death  of 
the  Princess  de  Lamballe. — Insults  are  heaped  on  the  King  and  Queen. — 
The  Trial  of  the  King. — His  Last  Interview  with  his  Family. — His  Death. 

FROM  the  llth  of  August  the  life  of  Marie  Antoinette  is  almost 
a  blank  to  us.  We  may  be  even  thankful  that  it  is  so,  and  that 
we  are  spared  the  details,  in  all  their  accumulated  miseries,  of 
a  series  of  events  which  are  a  disgrace  to  human  nature.  For 
month  after  month  the  gentle,  benevolent  king,  whom  no  sover- 
eign ever  exceeded  in  love  for  his  people,  or  in  the  exercise  of  ev- 
ery private  virtue ;  the  equally  pure-minded,  charitable,  and  patri- 
otic queen,  who,  to  the  somewhat  passive  excellences  of  her  hus- 
band, added  fascinating  graces  and  lofty  energies  of  which  he 
was  unhappily  destitute,  were  subjected  to  the  most  disgusting  in- 
dignities, to  the  tyranny  of  the  vilest  monsters  who  ever  usurped 
authority  over  a  nation,  and  to  the  daily  insults  of  the  meanest 
of  their  former  subjects,  who  thought  to  make  a  merit  with  their 
new  masters  of  their  brutality  to  those  whose  birthright  had  been 
the  submission  and  reverence  of  all  around  them. 

Vergniaud's  motion  had  only  extended  to  the  suspension  of 
the  king  from  his  functions  till  the  meeting  of  the  Convention ; 
but  no  one  could  doubt  that  that  suspension  would  never  be  taken 
off,  and  that  Louis  was  in  fact  dethroned.  Marie  Antoinette 
never  deceived  herself  on  the  point,  and,  retaining  the  opinion  as 
to  the  fate  of  deposed  monarchs  which  she  had  expressed  three 
years  before,  pronounced  that  all  was  over  with  them.  "My 
poor  children,"  said  she,  apostrophizing  the  little  dauphin  and  his 
sister,  "  it  is  cruel  to  give  up  the  hope  of  transmitting  to  you  so 
noble  an  inheritance,  and  to  have  to  say  that  all  is  at  an  end  with 
ourselves ;"  and,  lest  any  one  else  should  have  any  doubt  on  the 
subject,  the  Assembly  no  longer  headed  its  decrees  with  any  roy- 
al title,  but  published  them  in  the  name  of  the  nation.  In  one 


THE  TEMPLE.  431 

point  the  resolutions  of  the  10th  were  slightly  departed  from. 
The  municipal  authorities  reported  that  the  Luxembourg  had  so 
many  outlets  and  subterranean  passages,  that  it  would  be  difficult 
to  prevent  the  escape  of  a  prisoner  from  that  palace ;  and  accord- 
ingly the  destination  of  the  royal  family  was  changed  to  the  Tem- 
ple. Thither,  after  having  been  compelled  to  spend  two  more 
days  in  the  Assembly,  listening  to  the  denunciations  and  threats 
of  their  enemies,  whom  even  the  knowledge  that  they  were  wholly 
in  their  power  failed  to  pacify,  they  were  conveyed  on  the  1 3th  ; 
and  they  never  quit  it  till  they  were  dragged  forth  to  die. 

The  Temple  had  been,  as  its  name  imported,  the  fortress  and 
palace  of  the  Knights  Templars,  and,  having  been  erected  by 
them  in  the  palmy  days  of  their  wealth  and  magnificence,  con- 
tained spacious  apartments,  and  extensive  gardens  protected  from 
intrusion  by  a  lofty  wall,  which  surrounded  the  whole.  It  was 
not  unfit  for,  nor  unaccustomed  to,  the  reception  of  princes ;  for 
the-Count  d'Artois  had  fitted  up  a  portion  of  it  for  himself  when- 
ever he  visited  the  capital.  And  to  his  apartments  those  who  had 
the  custody  of  the  king  and  queen  at  first  conducted  them.  But 
the  new  Municipal  Council,  whom  the  recent  events  had  made 
the  real  masters  of  Paris,  considered  those  rooms  too  comfortable 
or  too  honorable  a  lodging  for  any  prisoners,  however  royal ;  and 
the  same  night,  before  they  could  retire  to  rest,  and  while  Louis 
was  still  occupying  himself  in  distributing  the  different  apart- 
ments among  the  members  of  his  family  and  the  few  attendants 
who  were  allowed  to  share  his  captivity,  an  order  was  sent  down 
to  remove  them  all  into  a  small  dilapidated  tower  which  had  been 
used  as  a  lodging  for  some  of  the  count's  footmen,  but  whose  bad 
walls  and  broken  windows  rendered  it  unfit  for  even  the  servants 
of  a  prince.  Besides  their  meanness  and  ruinous  condition,  the 
number  of  the  rooms  it  contained  was  so  scanty,  that  for  the  first 
few  days  the  only  room  that  could  be  found  for  the  Princess 
Elizabeth  was  an  old,  disused  kitchen ;  and  even  after  that  was 
remedied,  she  was  forced  to  share  her  new  chamber,  though  it 
was  both  small  and  dark,  with  her  niece,  Madame  Royale ;  while 
the  dauphin's  bed  was  placed  by  the  side  of  the  queen's,  in  one 
which  was  but  little  larger.*  And  the  dungeon-like  appearance 
of  the  entire  place  impressed  the  whole  family  with  the  idea  that 

*  "  Dernieres  Annees  du  Regne  et  de  la  Vie  de  Louis  XVI.,"  par  Francis 
Hue,  p.  336. 


432  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

it  was  not  intended  that  they  should  remain  there  long,  but  that 
an  early  death  was  preparing  for  them. 

Even  this  distress  was  speedily  aggravated  by  a  fresh  severity. 
Four  days  afterward  an  order  was  sent  down  which  commanded 
the  removal  of  all  their  attendants,  with  the  exception  of  one  or 
two  menial  servants.  Madame  de  Tourzel,  the  governess  of  the 
royal  children,  was  driven  away  with  the  coarsest  insults.  The 
Princess  de  Lamballe,  that  most  faithful  and  affectionate  friend 
of  the  queen,  was  rudely  torn  from  her  embrace  by  the  municipal 
officers;  and,  though  no  offense  was  even  imputed  to  her,  was 
dragged  off  to  a  prison,  where  she  was  soon  to  pay  the  forfeit  of 
her  loyalty  with  her  blood. 

From  this  time  forth  the  ting  and  queen  were  completely  cut 
off  from  the  outer  world.  They  were  treated  with  a  rigor  which 
in  happier  countries  is  not  even  experienced  by  convicted  crimi- 
nals. They  were  forbidden  to  receive  letters  or  newspapers ;  and 
presently  they  were  deprived  of  pens,  ink,  and  paper;  though 
they  would  neither  have  desired  to  write  nor  receive  letters  which 
would  have  been  read  by  their  jailers,  and  could  only  have  ex- 
posed their  correspondents  to  danger.  After  a  few  days  they 
were  even  deprived  of  the  attendance  of  all  their  servants  but 
two* — a  faithful  valet  named  Clery  (fidelity  such  as  his  may  well 
immortalize  his  name),  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  scanty  knowledge  which  we  possess  of  the  fate  of  the 
captive  princes  as  long  as  Louis  himself  was  permitted  to  live ; 
and  Turgy,  a  cook,  who,  by  an  act  of  faithful  boldness,  had  ob- 
tained a  surreptitious  entrance  into  the  Temple,  and  whose  serv- 
ices seemed  to  have  escaped  notice,  though  at  a  later  period  they 
proved  of  no  trivial  importance. 

Had  they  but  known  what  was  passing  in  the  Assembly,  Marie 
Antoinette  would  in  all  probability  have  still  found  matter  for 
some  comfort  and  hope  in  the  fierce  mutual  strife  of  the  Jacobins 
and  Girondins,  which  for  some  weeks  kept  the  Assembly  in  a  con- 
stant state  of  agitation ;  and  she  would  have  found  even  greater 
encouragement  in  the  dissatisfaction  which  in  many  departments 
the  people  expressed  at  the  late  events ;  and  in  the  conduct  of  La 
Fayette's  army,  which  at  first  cordially  approved  of  and  support- 

*  For  about  a  fortnight  they  had  two,  both  men — Hue,  the  valet  to  the 
dauphin,  as  well  as  Clery ;  but  Hue  was  removed  on  the  2d  of  September. 
He,  as  well  as  Clery,  has  left  an  account  of  the  imprisonment  till  the  day  of 
his  dismissal. 


THE  ROYAL  FAMILY  ENDURE  PRIVATIONS.  433 

ed  the  town-council  and  magistrates  of  Sedan,  who  arrested  and 
threw  into  prison  the  commissioners  whom  the  Assembly  had 
sent  to  announce  the  suspension  of  the  royal  authority.  But  the 
intelligence  of  that  demonstration  in  their  favor  never  reached 
them,  nor  that  of  its  suppression  a  few  days  later ;  when  La  Fay- 
ette,  who,  as  on  a  former  occasion,  had  committed  himself  to 
measures  beyond  his  strength  to  carry  out,  was  forced  to  fly  from 
the  country,  and  by  a  strange  violation  of  military  law  was  thrown 
into  an  Austrian  prison.  Nor  again,  when  for  a  moment  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick  appeared  likely  to  realize  the  hopes  on  which 
Marie  Antoinette  had  built  so  confidently,  and  by  the  capture  of 
Longwy  seemed  to  have  opened  to  himself  the  road  to  Paris,  did 
any  tidings  of  his  achievement  come  to  the  ears  of  those  who  had 
felt  such  deep  interest  in  his  operations.  After  a  time  the  inge- 
nuity of  Clery  found  a  mode  of  obtaining  for  them  some  little 
knowledge  of  what  was  passing  outside,  by  contriving  that  some 
of  his  friends  should  send  criers  to  cry  an  abstract  of  the  news 
contained  in  the  daily  journals  under  his  windows,  which  he  in 
his  turn  faithfully  reported  to  them  while  employed  in  such  me- 
nial offices  about  their  persons  as  took  off  the  attention  of  their 
guards,  who  day  and  night  maintained  an  unceasing  espial  on  all 
their  actions  and  even  words. 

From  the  very  first  they  had  to  endure  strange  privations  for 
princes.  They  had  not  even  a  sufficient  supply  of  clothes ;  the 
little  dauphin,  in  particular,  would  have  been  wholly  unprovided, 
had  not  the  English  embassadress,  Lady  Sutherland,  whose  son 
was  of  a  similar  age  and  size,  sent  in  a  stock  of  such  as  she 
thought  might  be  wanted.  But  as  the  garments  thus  received 
wore  out,  and  as  all  means  of  replacing  them  were  refused,  the 
queen  and  princess  were  reduced  to  ply  their  own  needles  dili- 
gently to  mend  the  clothes  of  the  whole  family,  that  they  might 
not  appear  to  their  jailers,  or  to  the  occupants  of  the  surrounding 
houses,  who  from  their  windows  could  command  a  view  of  the 
garden  in  which  they  took  their  daily  walks,  absolutely  ragged. 

Such  enforced  occupation  must  indeed  in  some  degree  have 
been  welcome  as  a  relief  from  thought,  which  their  unbroken  sol- 
itude left  them  but  too  much  leisure  to  indulge.  Clery  has  given 
us  an  account  of  the  manner  in  which  their  day  was  parceled  out.* 
The  king  rose  at  six,  and  Clery,  after  dressing  his  hair,  descended 

*  "  Journal  de  ce  qui  s'est  pass6  a  la  tour  du  Temple,"  etc.,  p.  28,  seq. 

28 


434  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

to  the  queen's  chamber,  which  was  on  the  story  below,  to  perform 
the  same  service  for  her  and  for  the  rest  of  the  family.  And  the 
hour  so  spent  brought  with  it  some  slight  comfort,  as  he  could 
avail  himself  of  that  opportunity  to  mention  any  thing  that  he 
might  have  learned  of  what  was  passing  out-of-doors,  or  to  re- 
ceive any  instructions  which  they  might  desire  to  give  him.  At 
nine  they  breakfasted  in  the  king's  room.  At  ten  they  came 
down -stairs  again  to  the  queen's  apartments,  where  Louis  oc- 
cupied himself  in  giving  the  dauphin  lessons  in  geography,  while 
Marie  Antoinette  busied  herself  in  a  corresponding  manner  with 
Madame  Royale.  But,  in  whatever  room  they  were,  their  guards 
were  always  present;  and  when,  at  one  o'clock,  they  went  down- 
stairs to  walk  in  the  garden,  they  were  still  accompanied  by  sol- 
diers :  the  only  member  of  the  family  who  was  not  exposed  to 
their  ceaseless  vigilance  being  the  little  dauphin,  who  was  allowed 
to  run  up  and  down  and  play  at  ball  with  Clery,  without  a  soldier 
thinking  it  necessary  to  watch  all  his  movements  or  listen  to  all 
his  childish  exclamations.  At  two  dinner  was  served,  and  regu- 
larly at  that  hour  the  odious  Santerre,  with  two  other  ruffians  of 
the  same  stamp,  whom  he  called  his  aids-de-camp,  visited  them 
to  make  sure  of  their  presence  and  to  inspect  their  rooms ;  and 
Clery  remarked  that  the  queen  never  broke  her  disdainful  silence 
to  him,  though  Louis  often  spoke  to  him,  generally  to  receive 
some  answer  of  brutal  insult.  After  dinner,  Louis  and  Marie  An- 
toinette would  play  piquet  or  backgammon ;  as,  while  they  were 
thus  engaged,  the  vigilance  of  their  keepers  relaxed,  and  the  noise 
of  shuffling  the  cards  or  rattling  the  dice  afforded  them  oppor- 
tunities of  saying  a  few  words  in  whispers  to  one  another,  which 
at  other  times  would  have  been  overheard.  In  the  evening  the 
queen  and  the  Princess  Elizabeth  read  aloud,  the  books  chosen 
being  chiefly  works  of  history,  or  the  masterpieces  of  Corneille 
and  Racine,  as  being  most  suitable  to  form  the  minds  and  tastes 
of  the  children ;  and  sometimes  Louis  himself  would  seek  to  di- 
vert them  from  their  sorrows  by  asking  the  children  riddles,  and 
finding  some  amusement  in  their  attempts  to  solve  them.  At 
bed -time  the  queen  herself  made  the  dauphin  say  his  prayers, 
teaching  him  especially  the  duty  of  praying  for  others,  for  the 
Princess  de  Lamballe,  and  for  Madame  de  Tourzel,  his  governess ; 
though  even  those  petitions  the  poor  boy  was  compelled  to  utter 
in  whispers,  lest,  if  they  were  repeated  to  the  Municipal  Council, 
he  should  bring  ruin  on  those  whom  he  regarded  as  friends.  At 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  TRIBUNAL.  435 

ten  the  family  separated  for  the  night,  a  sentinel  making  his  bed 
across  the  door  of  each  of  their  9hambers,  to  prevent  the  possibil- 
ity of  any  escape. 

In  this  way  they  passed  a  fortnight,  when  the  monotony  of 
their  lives  was  fearfully  disturbed.  The  Jacobins  had  established 
their  ascendency.  They  had  created  a  Revolutionary  Tribunal, 
which  at  once  began  its  course  of  wholesale  condemnation,  send- 
ing almost  every  one  who  was  brought  before  it  to  the  scaffold 
with  merely  a  form  of  trial ;  the  guillotine  being  erected,  as  it 
was  said,  en  permanence,  that  the  deaths  of  the  victims  might  nev- 
er be  delayed  for  want  of  means  to  execute  them ;  while,  that  a 
succession  of  victims  might  never  be  wanting,  Danton,  in  his  new 
character  of  Minister  of  Justice,  instituted  a  search  of  every  house 
for  arms  or  papers,  or  any  thing  which  might  afford  evidence  or 
even  suggest  a  suspicion  that  the  owners  disliked  or  feared  the 
new  authorities. 

But  it  was  not  enough  to  strike  terror  into  all  the  peaceful  cit- 
izens. The  Girondins  had  always  been  objects  of  jealous  rivalry 
to  the  Jacobins.  Fanatical  and  relentless  as  they  were  in  their 
cruelty,  they  had  recently  given  proofs  that  they  disapproved  of 
the  furious  blood-thirstiness  that  was  beginning  to  decimate  the 
city,  and  they  had  carried  the  Assembly  with  them  in  a  vote  for 
the  dissolution  of  the  new  Municipal  Council.  At  the  same  time, 
intelligence  of  the  Prussian  successes  reached  the  capital,  intelli- 
gence which,  it  seemed  possible,  might  animate  the  Royalists  to 
some  fresh  effort ;  and,  lest  they  should  find  means  of  reconciling 
themselves  to  Vergniaud  and  his  party,  the  Jacobins  and  Corde- 
liers resolved  to  give  both  a  lesson  by  a  deed  of  blood  which 
should  strike  terror  into  them.  We  may  spare  ourselves  the  pain 
of  relating  the  horrors  of  the  September  massacre,  when,  for 
more  than  four  days,  gangs  of  men  worse  than  devils,  and  of 
women  unsexed  by  profligacy  and  cruelty  till  they  had  become 
worse  even  than  the  men,  gave  themselves  up  to  the  work  of  in- 
discriminate slaughter,  deluging  the  streets  with  blood,  and,  where 
they  could  spare  time,  aggravating  the  pangs  of  death  by  superflu- 
ous tortures.  It  will  be  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  record  the 
fate  of  one  of  the  most  innocent  of  all  the  victims,  who  owed  her 
death  to  the  fact  that  she  had  long  been  the  queen's  most  chosen 
friend,  and  whose  murder  was  gloated  over  with  special  ferocity 
by  the  monsters  who  perpetrated  it,  as  enabling  them  to  inflict  an 
additional  pang  on  her  wretched  friend  and  mistress. 


436  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

Madame  de  Lamballe,  as  we  have  seen,  had  accompanied  the 
queen  to  the  Temple  on  the  first  day  of  her  captivity,  and  had 
subsequently  been  removed  to  one  of  the  city  prisons  known  as 
La  Force.  It  was  on  the  prisoners  in  the  different  places  of  con- 
finement that  the  work  of  death  was  to  be  done :  and  she  had 
been  specially  marked  out  for  slaughter,  not  solely  because  she 
was  beloved  by  Marie  Antoinette,  but  also,  it  was  understood,  be- 
cause, as  she  was  very  rich,  and  sister-in-law  to  the  Due  d'Orleans, 
that  detestable  prince  desired  to  add  her  inheritance  to  his  own 
already  vast  riches.  She  was  dragged  before  Hebert,  one  of  the 
foulest  of  the  Jacobin  crew,  who  had  taken  his  seat  at  the  gate 
of  the  prison  to  preside  over  the  trials,  as  they  were  called,  of  the 
prisoners  in  La  Force.  "  Swear,"  said  he,  "  devotion  to  liberty 
and  to  the  nation,  and  hatred  to  the  king  and  queen,  and  you 
shall  live."  "I  will  take  the  first  oath,"  she  replied,  "but  the 
second  never ;  it  is  not  in  my  heart.  The  king  and  queen  I  have 
ever  loved  and  honored."  Almost  before  she  had  finished  speak- 
ing she  was  pushed  into  the  gate-way.  One  ruffian  struck  her 
from  behind  with  his  sabre.  She  fell.  They  tore  her  into  pieces. 
A  letter  of  the  queen's  fell  from  her  hair,  in  which  she  had  hid- 
den it.  The  sight  of  it  redoubled  the  assassins'  fury.  They 
stuck  her  head  on  a  pike,  and  carried  it  in  triumph  to  the  Palais 
Royal  to  display  it  to  D'Orleans,  who  was  feasting  with  some  of 
the  companions  of  his  daily  orgies,  and  then  proceeded  to  the 
Temple  to  brandish  it  before  the  eyes  of  the  queen. 

It  was  about  three  o'clock.*  Dinner  had  just  been  removed, 
and  the  king  and  queen  were  sitting  down  to  play  backgammon, 
when  horrid  shouts  were  heard  in  the  street.  One  of  the  soldiers 
on  guard  in  the  room,  who  had  not  yet  laid  aside  every  feeling  of 
humanity,  closed  the  window  and  even  drew  the  curtain.  Anoth- 
er of  different  temper  insisted  that  Louis  should  come  to  the  win- 
dow and  show  himself.  As  the  uproar  increased,  the  queen  rose 
from  her  seat,  and  the  king  asked  what  was  the  matter.  "  Well," 
said  the  man,  "  since  you  wish  to  know,  they  want  to  show  you 
the-  head  of  Madame  de  Lamballe."  No  event  that  had  yet  oc- 
curred had  struck  the  queen  with  such  anguish.  The  uproar  in- 
creased. Those  who  bore  the  head  had  wished  even  to  force  the 
doors,  and  bring  their  trophy,  still  bleeding,  into  the  very  room 
where  the  royal  family  were,  and  were  only  prevented  by  a  com- 

*  "  M6moires  Particuliers,"  par  Madame  la  Duchesse  d'Angouleme,  p.  21. 


INSULTS  OF  THE  GUARDS.  437 

promise  which  permitted  them  to  parade  it  round  their  tower  in 
triumph.  As  the  shouts  died  away,  Petion's  secretary  arrived 
with  a  small  sum  of  money  which  had  been  issued  for  the  king's 
use.  He  noticed  that  the  queen  stood  all  the  time  that  he  was 
in  the  room,  and  fancied  she  assumed  that  attitude  out  of  respect 
to  the  mayor.  She  had  never  stirred  since  she  had  heard  of  the 
princess's  death,  but  had  stood  rooted,  as  it  were,  to  the  ground, 
stupefied  and  speechless  with  horror  and  anguish.  It  was  long  be- 
fore she  could  be  restored ;  and  all  through  the  night  the  rest  of 
the  princesses,  if  at  least  they  could  have  slept,  was  broken  by  her 
sobs,  which  never  ceased. 

As  time  passed  on,  the  prospects  of  the  unhappy  prisoners  be- 
came still  more  gloomy.  On  the  21st  of  September  the  Conven- 
tion met,  and  its  first  act  was  to  abolish  royalty  and  declare  the 
government  a  republic,  and  an  officer  was  instantly  sent  to  make 
proclamation  of  the  event  under  the  Temple  walls ;  and,  as  if  the 
establishment  of  a  republic  authorized  an  increase  of  insolence  on 
the  part  of  the  guards  of  the  prisoners,  the  insults  to  which  they 
were  subjected  grew  more  frequent  and  more  gross.  Sentences 
both  menacing  and  indecent  were  written  on  the  walls  where  they 
must  catch  their  eye ;  the  soldiers  puffed  their  tobacco-smoke  in 
the  queen's  face  as  she  passed,  or  placed  their  seats  in  the  passages 
so  much  in  her  way  that  she  could  hardly  avoid  stumbling  over 
their  legs  as  she  went  down  to  the  garden.  Sometimes  they  even 
assailed  her  with  direct  abuse,  calling  her  the  assassin  of  the  peo- 
ple, who  in  their  turn  would  assassinate  her.  More  than  once  the 
whole  family  had  to  submit  to  a  personal  search,  and  to  empty 
their  pockets,  when  the  officers  who  made  the  search  carried  off 
whatever  they  chose  to  term  suspicious,  especially  their  knives 
and  scissors,  so  that,  when  at  work,  the  queen  and  princess  were 
forced  to  bite  off  the  threads  with  their  teeth.  And  amidst  all 
this  misery  no  one  ever  heard  Marie  Antoinette  utter  a  word  to 
lament  her  own  fate,  or  to  ask  pity  for  herself.  She  mourned 
over  her  husband's  fall ;  she  pitied  Elizabeth,  to  whom  malice  it- 
self could  not  impute  a  share  in  the  wrongs  of  which  Danton  and 
Vergniaud  had  taught  the  people  to  complain.  Most  of  all  did 
she  bewail  the  ruined  prospects  of  her  son ;  and  more  than  once 
she  brought  tears  into  Clery's  eyes  by  the  earnest  tenderness  with 
which  she  implored  him  to  provide  for  the  safety  of  the  noble 
child  after  his  parents  should  have  been  destroyed. 

The  insults  increased,  each  being  an  additional  omen  of  the 


438  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

future.  The  most  painful  injuries  were  reserved  for  the  queen. 
Toward  the  end  of  October  the  dauphin  was  removed  from  her 
apartment  to  that  of  the  king,  that  she  might  thus  be  deprived 
of  the  comfort  of  ministering  to  his  daily  wants.  But  Louis  him- 
self was  not  spared.  One  day  an  order  came  down  to  deprive 
him  of  his  sword ;  on  another  he  was  stripped  of  his  different 
decorations  and  orders  of  knighthood.  The  system  of  espial, 
too,  was  carried  out  with  increased  severity.  Their  linen,  when 
it  came  back  from  the  washer -woman,  and  even  their  washing- 
bills,  were  held  to  the  fire  to  see  if  any  invisible  ink  had  been 
employed  to  communicate  with  them.  Their  loaves  and  biscuits 
were  cut  asunder  lest  they  should  contain  notes.  The  end  was 
approaching.  A  week  or  two  later  the  king  was  removed  to  an- 
other tower,  and  was  only  permitted  to  see  his  family  during  a 
certain  portion  of  the  day.  At  last  it  was  determined  to  bring 
him  to  trial.  On  the  llth  of  December  he  was  suddenly  inform- 
ed that  he  was  to  be  brought  before  the  Convention ;  and  from 
that  day  forth  he  was  cut  off  from  all  intercourse  with  his  family, 
even  his  wife  being  forbidden  to  see  or  hear  from  him.  The  bar- 
barous restriction  afforded  him  one  more  opportunity  of  showing 
his  amiable  unselfishness  and  fortitude.  The  regulation  had  been 
made  by  the  Municipal  Council,  not  by  the  Assembly ;  and  its  in- 
human and  unprecedented  severity,  coupled  with  a  jealousy  of  the 
Council,  as  seeking  to  usurp  the  whole  authority  of  the  State,  in- 
duced the  Assembly  to  rescind  it,  and  to  grant  permission  for 
Louis  to  have  the  dauphin  and  his  sister  with  him.  Yet,  lest 
these  innocent  children  should  prove  messengers  of  conspiracy 
between  him  and  the  queen  and  Elizabeth,  it  was  ordered  at  the 
same  time  that,  so  long  as  they  were  allowed  to  visit  him,  they 
should  be  separated  from  their  mother  and  their  aunt ;  and  Louis, 
though  never  in  greater  need  of  comfort,  thought  it  so  much  bet- 
ter for  the  children  themselves  that  they  should  be  with  the 
queen,  that  for  their  sakcs  he  renounced  their  society,  and  al- 
lowed the  decree  of  the  Council  to  be  carried  out  in  all  its  piti- 
less cruelty. 

And,  again,  we  may  spare  ourselves  from  dwelling  on  the  de- 
tails of  what,  in  hideous  mockery,  was  called  the  king's  trial, 
though  it  was  in  fact  a  mere  ceremonious  prelude  to  his  murder, 
which  had  been  determined  on  before  it  began.  Deep  as  is  the 
disgrace  with  which  it  has  forever  covered  the  nation  which  tol- 
erated such  an  abomination,  it  was  relieved  by  some  incidents 


TRIAL   OF  THE  KINO.  439 

which  did  honor  to  the  country  and  to  human  nature.  The  mur- 
derers of  Louis,  in  their  ignoble  pedantry,  wearied  the  ear  with 
appeals  to  the  examples  of  the  ancient  Romans,  of  Decius*  and 
of  Brutus.  But  no  Roman-  ever  gave  a  nobler  proof  of  contempt 
of  danger,  and  devotion  to  duty,  than  wa&  afforded  by  the  in- 
trepid lawyers,  Malesherbes,  De  Seze,  and  Tronchet,  who  volun- 
tarily undertook  the  king's  defense,  though  Louis  himself  warn- 
ed them  that  their  utmost  efforts  would  be  fruitless,  and  would 
only  bring  destruction  on  themselves  without  saving  him.  One 
member,  too,  of  the  Convention,  Lanjuinais,  though  originally  he 
had  been  a  member  of  the  Breton  Club,  and  had  latterly  been  gen- 
erally regarded  as  connected  with  the  Girondins,  made  more  than 
one  eloquent  effort  in  the  king's  behalf,  provoking  the  Jacobins 
and  Girondins  to  their  very  wildest  fury  by  his  contemptuous  de- 
fiance of  their  menaces.  And  even  when  the  verdict  was  being 
given ;  when  Jacobins,  Girondins,  and  Cordeliers,  Robespierre, 
Vergniaud,  Danton,  and  the  infamous  Due  d'Orleans  were  vying 
with  one  another  in  the  eagerness  with  which-  they  pushed  for- 
ward to  record  their  votes  of  condemnation ;  and  when  a  mob  of 
hired  ruffians,  who  thronged  the  hall,  were  cheering-  every  vote  for 
death,  and  holding  daggers  to  the  throat  of  every  one  from  whom 
they  apprehended  a  contrary  judgment ;  one  noble  of  frail  body, 
but  of  a  spirit  worthy  of  his  birth  and  rank,  the  Marquis  de  Vil- 
lette,  laughed  in  the  faces  of  his  threateners,  looked  the  assassins 
in  the  face,  and  told  them  that  he  would  not  obey  their  orders, 
and  that  they  dared  not  kill  him;  and  with  a  loud  voice  pro- 
nounced a  vote  of  acquittal. 

But  no  courage  or  devotion  of  a  few  honest  men  could  save 
Louis.  One  vote  by  an  immense  majority  pronounced  him  guilty ; 
a  second  refused  all  appeal  to  the  people ;  a  third,  by  a  majority 
of  fifty  voices,  condemned  him  to  death.  And  on  the  morning 
of  the  20th  of  January,  1793,  Louis  was  roused  from  his  bed  to 
hear  his  sentence,  and  to  learn  that  it  was  to  be  carried  out  the 
next  day. 

'  While  the  trial  lasted,  the  queen  and  those  with  her  had  been 
kept  in  almost  absolute  ignorance  of  what  was  taking  place.    They 

*  Decius  was  the  hero  whose  example  was  especially  invoked  by  Madame 
Roland.  The  historians  of  his  own  country  had  never  accused  him  of  mur- 
dering any  one ;  but  she,  in  the  very  first  month  of  the  Revolution,  had  call- 
ed, with  a  very  curious  reading  of  history,  for  "  some  generous  Decius  to  risk 
his  life  to  take  theirs  "  (the  lives  of  the  king  and  queen). 


440  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

never,  however,  doubted  what  the  result  would  be,*  so  that  it  was 
scarcely  a  shock  to  them  when  they  heard  the  news-men  crying  the 
sentence  under  their  windows — the  only  mercy  that  was  shown  to 
either  the  prisoner  who  was  to  die,  or  to  those  who  were  to  sur- 
vive him,  being  that  they  were  allowed  once  more  to  meet  on 
earth.  At  eight  in  the  evening  the  queen,  his  children,  and  his 
sister  were  to  be  allowed  to  visit  him.  He  prepared  for  the  in- 
terview with  astonishing  calmness,  making  the  arrangements  so 
deliberately  that,  when  he  noticed  that  Clery  had  placed  a  bot- 
tle of  iced  water  on  the  table,  he  bid  him  change  it,  lest,  if  the 
queen  should  require  any,  the  chill  should  prove  injurious  to  her 
health.  Even  that  last  interview  was  not  allowed  to  pass  wholly 
without  witnesses,  since  the  Municipal  Council  refused,  even  on 
such  an  occasion,  to  relax  their  regulation  that  their  guards  were 
never  to  lose  sight  of  the  king ;  and  all  that  was  permitted  was 
that  he  might  retire  with  his  family  into  an  inner  room  which 
had  a  glass  door,  so  that,  though  what  passed  must  be  seen,  their 
last  words  might  not  be  overheard.  His  daughter,  Madame  Roy- 
ale,  now  a  girl  of  fourteen,  and  old  enough,  as  her  mother  had 
said  a  few  months  before,  to  realize  the  misery  of  the  scenes 
which  she  daily  saw  around  her,  has  left  us  an  account  of  the  in- 
terview, necessarily  a  brief  one,  for  the  queen  and  princess  were 
too  wretched  to  say  much.  Louis  wept  when  he  announced  to 
them  how  short  was  the  time  which  he  had  to  live,  but  his  tears 
were  those  of  pity  for  the  desolation  of  those  he  loved,  and  not 
of  fear  for  himself.  He  was  even,  in  some  sense,  a  willing  vic- 
tim, for,  as  he  told  them,  it  had  been  proposed  to  save  him  by  ap- 
pealing to  the  primary  Assemblies  of  the  nation ;  but  he  had  re- 
fused his  consent  to  a  step  which  must  throw  the  whole  country 
into  confusion,  and  might  be  the  cause  of  civil  war.  He  would 
rather  die  than  risk  the  bringing  of  such  calamities  on  his  people. 
He  even  sought  to  comfort  the  queen  by  making  some  excuses 
for  the  monsters  who  had  condemned  him ;  and  his  last  words 
to  his  family  were  an  entreaty  to  forgive  them ;  to  his  son,  an  in- 
junction never  to  seek  to  revenge  his  death,  even  if  some  change 
of  fortune  should  enable  him  to  do  so. 

The  queen  said  nothing,  but  sat  clinging  to  him  in  speechless 


*  The  princess  told  Clery, "  La  reine  et  moi  nous  nous  attendons  a  tout,  et 
nous  ne  nous  faisons  aucune  illusion  sur  le  sort  qu'on  prepare  au  roi,"  etc. — 
CLERY,  p.  106. 


DEATH  OF  LOUIS.  441 

agony.  At  last  he  begged  them  to  retire,  that  he  might  seek  rest 
to  prepare  himself  for  the  morrow ;  and  then  she  spoke,  to  beg 
that  at  least  they  might  meet  again  the  next  morning.  "Yes," 
said  he,  "  at  eight  o'clock."  "  Why  not  at  seven  ?"  asked  she. 
"  Well,  then,  at  seven."  But,  after  she  had  left  him  he  deter- 
mined to  avoid  this  second  meeting,  not  so  much  because  he 
feared  its  unnerving  himself,  but  because  he  felt  that  the  second 
parting  must  be  too  terrible  for  her. 

When  she  returned  to  her  own  chamber  she  had  scarcely 
strength  left  to  place  the  dauphin  in  his  bed.  She  threw  herself, 
dressed  as  she  was,  on  her  own  bed,  where  her  sister-in-law  and 
daughter  heard  her,  as  the  little  princess  describes  her  state, "  shiv- 
ering with  cold  and  grief  the  whole  night  long."* 

Even  if  she  could  have  slept,  her  rest  would  soon  have  been 
disturbed  by  the  movement  of  troops,  the  beating  of  the  drums, 
and  the  heavy  roll  of  the  cannon  passing  through  the  street.  For 
the  miscreants  who  bore  sway  in  the  city  knew  well  that  the 
crime  which  they  were  about  to  commit  was  viewed  with  horror 
by  the  great  majority  of  the  nation,  and  even  of  the  Parisians, 
and  to  the  last  moment  were  afraid  of  a  rescue.  But  no  one 
could  interpose  between  Louis  and  his  doom ;  and  the  next  intel- 
ligence of  him  that  reached  his  wife,  who  was  waiting  the  whole 
morning  in  painful  anxiety  for  the  summons  to  see  him  once 
more,  was  that  he  had  perished  beneath  the  fatal  guillotine,  and 
that  she  was  a  widow. 

*  "  Memoires  "  de  la  Ducbesse  d'Angouleme,  p.  53. 


442  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

The  Queen  is  refused  Leave  to  see  Clery.  —  Madame  Royale  is  taken  111.  — 
Plans  are  formed  for  the  Queen's  Escape  by  MM.  Jarjayes,  Toulan,  and  by 
the  Baron  de  Batz. — Marie  Antoinette  refuses  to  leave  her  Son. — Illness 
of  the  young  King. — Overthrow  of  the  Girondins. — Insanity  of  the  Woman 
Tison. — Kindness  of  the  Queen  to  her. — Her  Son  is  taken  from  her,  and 
intrusted  to  Simon. — His  Ill-treatment. — The  Queen  is  removed  to  the  Con- 
ciergerie. — She  is  tried  before  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal. — She  is  con- 
demned.— Her  last  Letter  to  the  Princess  Elizabeth. — Her  Death  and  Char- 
acter. 

SHOUTS  in  the  streets  announced  to  her  and  those  around  her 
that  all  was  over.  All  the  morning  she  had  alarmed  the  princesses 
by  the  speechless,  tearless  stupor  into  which  she  seemed  plunged ; 
but  at  last  she  roused  herself,  and  begged  to  see  Clery,  who  had 
been  with  Louis  till  he  left  the  Temple,  and  who,  therefore,  she 
hoped,  might  have  some  last  message  for  her,  some  last  words  of 
affection,  some  parting  gift.  And  so  indeed  he  had  ;*  for  the  last 
act  of  Louis  had  been  to  give  that  faithful  servant  his  seal  for  the 
dauphin,  and  his  ring  for  the  queen,  with  a  little  packet  contain- 
ing portions  of  her  hair  and  those  of  his  children  which  he  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  wearing.  And  he  had  bid  him  tell  them  all 
— "  the  queen,  his  dear  children,  and  his  sister — that  he  had  prom- 
ised to  see  them  that  morning,  but  that  he  had  desired  to  save 
them  the  pain  of  so  cruel  a  separation.  How  much,"  he  contin- 
ued, "  does  it  cost  me  to  go  without  receiving  their  last  em- 
braces !  You  must  bear  to  them  my  last  farewell." 

But  even  the  poor  consolation  of  receiving  these  sad  tokens  of 
unchanged  affection  was  refused  to  her.  The  Council  refused 
Clery  admittance  to  her,  and  seized  the  little  trinkets  and  the 
packet  of  hair.  The  king's  last  words  never  reached  her.  But 
a  few  days  afterward,  Toulan,  one  of  the  commissioners  of  the 
Council,  who  sympathized  with  her  bereavement,  found  means  to 
send  her  the  ring  and  seal.f  Her  sister  and  her  daughter  were 

*  Clery's  "Journal,"  p.  169. 

f  In  March,  having  an  opportunity  of  communicating  with  the  Count  de 


THE  PRINCESS  ROTAL.  443 

the  more  anxious  that  she  should  see  Clery,  from  the  hope  that 
conversation  with  him  might  bring  on  a  flood  of  tears,  which 
would  have  given  her  some  relief.  But  her  own  fortitude  was 
her  best  support.  Miserable  as  she  was,  hopeless  as  she  was,  it 
was  characteristic  of  her  magnanimous  courage  that  she  did  not 
long  give  way  to  womanly  lamentations.  She  recollected  that  she 
had  still  duties  to  perform  to  the  living,  to  her  daughter  and  sis- 
ter, and,  above  all,  to  her  son,  now  her  king,  whom,  if  some  happi- 
er change  of  fortune,  when  the  nation  should  have  recovered  from 
its  present  madness,  should  replace  him  on  his  father's  throne,  it 
must  be  her  care  to  render  worthy  of  such  a  restoration.  She 
began  to  apply  herself  diligently  to  the  work  of  giving  him  les- 
sons such  as  his  father  had  given  him,  mingling  them  with  the 
constant  references  to  that  father's  example,  which  she  never 
ceased  to  hold  up  to  him,  dwelling  with  the  emphatic  exaggera- 
tion of  lasting  affection  on  his  gentleness,  his  benevolence,  his 
love  for  his  subjects ;  qualities  which,  in  truth,  he  had  possessed 
in  sufficient  abundance,  had  he  but  been  gifted  with  the  courage 
and  firmness  indispensable  to  secure  to  his  people  the  benefits  he 
wished  them  to  enjoy. 

She  had  too,  for  a  time,  another  occupation.  The  princess 
royal  was,  as  she  had  said  not  long  before,  of  an  age  to  feel  keen- 
ly the  miseries  of  her  parents,  and  the  agitation  into  which  she 
had  been  thrown  had  its  natural  effect  upon  her  health.  Her  own 

Provence,  she  sent  these  precious  memorials  to  him  for  safer  custody,  with  a 
joint  letter  from  herself  and  her  three  fellow-prisoners :  "  Having  a  faithful 
person  on  whom  we  can  depend,  I  profit  by  the  opportunity  to  send  to  my 
brother  and  friend  this  deposit,  which  may  not  be  intrusted  to  any  other 
hands.  The  bearer  will  tell  you  by  what  a  miracle  we  were  able  to  obtain 
these  precious  pledges.  I  reserve  the  name  of  him  who  is  so  useful  to  us,  to 
tell  it  you  some  day  myself.  The  impossibility  which  has  hitherto  existed  of 
sending  you  any  intelligence  of  us,  and  the  excess  of  our  misfortunes,  make 
us  feel  more  vividly  our  cruel  separation.  May  it  not  be  long.  Meanwhile  I 
embrace  you  as  I  love  you,  and  you  know  that  that  is  with  all  my  heart. — 
M.  A."  A  line  is  added  by  the  princess  royul,  and  signed  by  her  brother,  as 
king,  as  well  as  by  herself :  "I  am  charged  for  my  brother  and  myself  to  em- 
brace you  with  all  my  heart. — M.  T.  [MARIA  TERESA],  Louis."  And  another  by 
the  Princess  Elizabeth  :  "  I  enjoy  beforehand  the  pleasure  which  you  will  feel 
in  receiving  this  pledge  of  love  and  confidence.  To  be  reunited  to  you  and 
to  see  you  happy  is  all  that  I  desire.  You  know  if  I  love  you.  I  embrace 
you  with  all  my  heart. — E."  The  letters  were  shown  by  the  Count  de  Pro- 
vence to  C16ry,  whom  he  allowed  to  take  a  copy  of  them. — CLBRY'S  Journal, 
p.  174. 


444  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

language  on  the  subject  affords  a  striking  proof  how  well  Marie 
Antoinette  had  succeeded  in  imbuing  her  with  her  own  forgetful- 
ness  of  self.  As  she  has  recorded  the  occurrence  in  her  journal, 
"  Fortunately  her  affliction  increased  her  illness  to  so  serious  a  de- 
gree as  to  cause  a  favorable  diversion  to  her  mother's  despair."* 

Youth,  however,  and  a  strong  constitution  prevailed,  and  the  lit- 
tle princess  recovered ;  while  other  matters  also  for  a  time  claimed . 
a  large  share  of  her  mother's  attention.  For  herself,  Marie  An- 
toinette felt,  as  she  well  might  feel,  that,  come  what  would,  hap- 
piness and  she  were  forever  parted ;  and  the  death  to  which  she 
never  doubted  that  her  enemies  destined  her  could  hardly  have 
been  anticipated  by  her  as  any  thing  but  a  relief,  if  she  had  thought 
only  of  her  own  feelings.  But,  again,  she  had  others  to  think  of 
besides  herself — of  her  children.  And  she  presently  learned  that 
others  were  thinking  of  her,  and  were  willing  (it  should  rather  be 
said  were  eager  and  proud)  to  encounter  any  danger,  if  they  might 
only  have  the  happiness  and  honor  of  securing  and  saving  her 
whom  they  still  regarded  as  their  queen.  Two  had  long  been  at- 
tached to  the  royal  household :  the  wife  of  M.  de  Jarjayes,  a  gen- 
tleman of  ancient  family  in  Dauphine,  had  been  one  of  Marie  An- 
toinette's waiting -worn  en,  and  he  himself,  since  the  fatal  expedi- 
tion to  Varennes,  had  been  employed  by  Louis  on  several  secret 
missions.  From  the  moment  that  his  royal  master  was  brought 
before  the  Convention  he  had  despaired  of  his  life,  and  had,  there- 
fore, bent  all  his  thoughts  on  the  preservation  of  the  queen.  M. 
Turgy,  the  second,  was  in  a  humbler  rank  of  life.  He  was,  as  we 
have  seen,  one  of  the  officers  of  the  kitchen  ;  but  in  the  household 
of  a  king  of  France  even  the  cooks  had  pretensions  to  gentle 
blood.  A  third  was  a  man  named  Toulan,  who  had  originally 
been  a  music  -  seller  in  Paris,  but  had  subsequently  obtained  em- 
ployment under  the  Municipal  Council,  and  was  now  a  commis- 
sioner, with  duties  which  brought  him  into  constant  contact  with 
the  imprisoned  queen.  Either  he  had  never  in  his  heart  been  her 
enemy,  or  he  had  been  converted  by  the  dignified  fortitude  with 
which  she  bore  her  miseries,  and  by  the  irresistible  fascination 
which  even  in  prison  she  still  exercised  over  all  whose  hearts  had 
not  been  hardened  by  fanatical  wickedness  against  every  manly  or 
honest  feeling ;  he  won  the  queen's  confidence  by  the  most  wel- 
come service,  which  has  been  already  mentioned,  of  conveying  to 

*  "  Mdmoires  "  de  la  Duchesse  d'Angouleme,  p.  56. 


PLANS  FOR  HER  ESCAPE.  445 

her  her  husband's  seal  and  ring.  She  gave  him  a  letter  to  rec- 
ommend him  to  the  confidence  of  Jarjayes ;  and  their  combined 
ingenuity  devised  a  plan  for  the  escape  of  the  whole  family.  It 
was  in  their  favor  that  a  man,  who  came  daily  to  look  to  the 
lamps,  usually  brought  with  him  his  two  sons,  who  nearly  match- 
ed the  size  of  the  royal  children.  And  Jarjayes  and  Toulan,  aid- 
ed by  another  of  the  municipal  commissioners,  named  Lepitre, 
who  had  also  learned  to  abhor  the  indignities  practiced  on  fallen 
royalty,  had  prepared  full  suits  of  male  attire  for  the  queen  and 
princess,  with  red  scarfs  and  sashes  as  were  worn  by  the  different 
commissioners,  of  whom  there  were  too  many  for  all  of  them  to  be 
known  to  the  sentinels ;  and  also  clothes  for  the  two  children,  ill-fit- 
ting and  shabby,  to  resemble  the  dress  of  the  lamp-lighter's  boys. 
Passports,  too,  by  the  aid  of  Lepitre,  whose  duties  lay  in  the  de- 
partment which  issued  them,  were  provided  for  the  whole  fami- 
ly ;  and  after  careful  discussion  of  the  arrangements  to  be  adopt- 
ed when  once  the  prisoners  were  clear  of  the  Temple,  it  was  set- 
tled that  they  should  take  the  road  to  Normandy  in  three  cabrio- 
lets,-which  would  be  less  likely  to  attract  notice  than  any  larger 
and  less  ordinary  carriage. 

The  end  of  February  or  the  beginning  of  March  was  fixed  for 
the  attempt ;  but  before  that  time  the  Government  and  the  peo- 
ple had  become  greatly  disquieted  by  the  operations  of  the  Ger- 
man armies,  which  were  about  to  receive  the  powerful  assistance 
of  England.  Prussia  had  gained  decided  advantages  on  the  Rhine. 
An  Austrian  army,  under  the  Archduke  Charles,  was  making  for- 
midable progress  in  the  Netherlands.  Rumors,  also,  which  soon 
proved  to  be  well  founded,  of  an  approaching  insurrection  in  the 
western  departments  of  France,  reached  the  capital.  The  vigilance 
with  which  the  royal  prisoners  were  watched  was  increased.  In- 
formation, too,  though  of  no  precise  character,  that  they  had  ob- 
tained means  of  communicating  with  their  partisans  who  were  at 
liberty,  was  conveyed  to  the  magistrates.  And  at  last  Jarjayes 
and  Toulan  were  forced  to  abandon  the  idea  of  effecting  the  es- 
cape of  the  whole  family,  though  they  were  still  confident  that 
they  could  accomplish  that  of  the  queen,  which  they  regarded  as 
the  most  important,  since  it  was  plain  that  it  was  she  who  was  in 
the  most  immediate  danger.  Elizabeth,  as  disinterested  as  herself, 
besought  her  to  embrace  their  offers,  and  to  let  her  and  the  chil- 
dren, as  being  less  obnoxious  to  the  Jacobins,  take  their  chance  of 
some  subsequent  means  of  escape,  or  perhaps  even  of  mercy. 


446  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

But  such  a  flight  was  forbidden  alike  by  Marie  Antoinette's 
sense  of  duty  and  by  her  sense  of  honor,  if  indeed  the  two  were 
ever  separated  in  her  mind.  Honor  forbade  her  to  desert  her 
companions  in  misery,  whose  danger  might  even  be  increased  by 
the  rage  of  her  jailers,  exasperated  at  her  escape.  Duty  to  her  boy 
forbade  it  still  more  emphatically.  As  his  guardian,  she  ought  not 
to  leave  him ;  as  his  mother,  she  could  not.  And  her  renuncia- 
tion of  the  whole  design  was  conveyed  to  M.  Jar  jay  es  in  a  letter 
which  did  honor  alike  to  both  by  the  noble  gratitude  which  it  ex- 
pressed, and  which  was  long  cherished  by  his  heirs  as  one  of  their 
most  precious  possessions,  till  it  was  destroyed,  with  many  anoth- 
er valuable  record,  when  Paris  a  second  time  fell  under  the  rule  of 
wretches  scarcely  less  detestable  than  the  Jacobins  whom  they  im- 
itated.* It  was  written  by  stealth,  with  a  pencil ;  but  no  difficul- 
ties or  hurry,  as  no  acuteness  of  disappointment  or  depth  of  dis- 
tress, could  rob  Marie  Antoinette  of  her  desire  to  confer  pleasure 
on  others,  or  of  her  inimitable  gracefulness  of  expression.  Thus 
she  wrote : 

"  We  have  had  a  pleasant  dream,  that  is  all.  I  have  gained 
much  by  still  finding,  on  this  occasion,  a  new  proof  of  your  entire 
devotion  to  me.  My  confidence  in  you  is  boundless.  And  on  all 
occasions  you  will  always  find  strength  of  mind  and  courage  in 
me.  But  the  interest  of  my  son  is  my  sole  guide;  and,  whatever 
happiness  I  might  find  in  being  out  of  this  place,  I  can  not  con- 
sent to  separate  myself  from  him.  In  what  remains,  I  thorough- 
ly recognize  your  attachment  to  me  in  all  that  you  said  to  me 
yesterday.  Rely  upon  it  that  I  feel  the  kindness  and  the  force 
of  your  arguments  as  far  as  my  own  interest  is  concerned,  and 
that  I  feel  that  the  opportunity  can  not  recur.  But  I  could  en- 
joy nothing  if  I  were  to  leave  my  children ;  and  this  idea  pre- 
vents me  from  even  regretting  my  decision. "f 

And  to  Toulan  she  said  that  "  her  sole  desire  was  to  be  re- 
united to  her  husband  whenever  Heaven  should  decide  that  her 
life  was  no  longer  necessary  to  her  children."  He  was  greatly 
afflicted,  but  he  could  no  longer  be  of  use  to  her.  Her  last  com- 
mission to  him  was  to  convey  to  her  eldest  brother-in-law,  the 
Count  de  Provence,  her  husband's  ring  and  seal,  that  they  might 
be  in  safer  custody  than  her  own,  and  that  she  or  her  son  might 

*  It  was  burned  in  1871,  in  the  time  of  the  Commune. 

f  Feuillet  de  Conches,  vi.,  p.  499.     The  letter  is  neither  dated  nor  signed. 


A  PLAN  TO  RESCUE  TEE  QUEEN.  447 

reclaim  them,  if  either  should  ever  be  at  liberty.  She  gave  Tou- 
lan  also,  as  a  memorial  of  her  gratitude,  a  small  gold  box,  one 
of  the  few  trinkets  which  she  still  possessed,  and  which,  unhap- 
pily, proved  a  fatal  present.  In  the  summer  of  the  next  year  it 
was  found  in  his  possession,  its  history  was  ascertained,  and  he 
was  sent  to  the  scaffold  for  the  sole  offense  of  having  and  valuing 
a  relic  of  his  murdered  sovereign. 

Nor  was  this  the  only  plan  formed  for  the  queen's  rescue. 
The  Baron  de  Batz  was  a  noble  of  the  purest  blood  in  France, 
seneschal  of  the  Duchy  of  Albret,  and  bound  by  ancient  ties  of 
hereditary  friendship  to  the  king,  as  the  heir  of  Henry  IV.,  whose 
most  intimate  confidence  had  been  enjoyed  by  his  ancestor.  He 
was  still  animated  by  all  the  antique  feelings  of  chivalrous  loyal- 
ty, and  from  the  first  breaking-out  of  the  troubles  of  the  Revolu- 
tion he  had  brought  to  the  service  of  his  sovereign  the  most  ab- 
solute devotion,  which  was  rendered  doubly  useful  by  an  inex- 
haustible fertility  of  resource,  and  a  presence  of  mind  that  noth- 
ing could  daunt  or  perplex.  On  the  fatal  21st  of  January,  he 
had  even  formed  a  project  of  rescuing  Louis  on  his  way  to  the 
scaffold,  which  failed,  partly  from  the  timidity  of  some  on  whose 
co-operation  he  had  reckoned,  and  partly,  it  is  said,  from  the  re- 
luctance of  Louis  himself  to  countenance  an  enterprise  which, 
whatever  might  be  its  result,  must  tend  to  fierce  conflict  and 
bloodshed.  Since  his  sovereign's  death  he  had  bent  all  the  ener- 
gies of  his  mind  to  contrive  the  escape  of  the  queen,  and  he  had 
so  far  succeeded  that  he  had  enlisted  in  her  cause  two  men  whose 
posts  enabled  them  to  give  most  effectual  assistance :  Michonis, 
who,  like  Toulan,  was  one  of  the  commissioners  of  the  Council ; 
and  Cortey,  a  captain  of  the  National  Guard,  whose  company  was 
one  of  those  most  frequently  on  duty  at  the  Temple.  It  seemed 
as  if  all  that  was  necessary  to  be  done  was  to  select  a  night  for 
the  escape  when  the  chief  outlets  of  the  Temple  should  be  guard- 
ed by  Cortey's  men ;  and  De  Batz,  who  was  at  home  in  every 
thing  that  required  manoeuvre  or  contrivance,  had  provided  dresses 
to  disguise  the  persons  of  the  whole  family  while  in  the  Temple, 
and -passports  and  conveyances  to  secure  their  escape  the  moment 
they  were  outside  the  gates.  Every  thing  seemed  to  promise 
success,  when  at  the  last  moment  secret  intelligence  that  some 
plan  or  other  was  in  agitation  was  conveyed  to  the  Council.  It 
was  not  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  know  whom  they  were  to 
guard  against  or  to  arrest,  but  it  was  enough  to  lead  them  to  send 


448  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

down  to  the  Temple  another  commissioner  whose  turn  of  duty 
did  not  require  his  presence  there,  but  whose  ferocious  surliness 
of  temper  pointed  him  out  as  one  not  easily  to  be  either  tricked 
or  overborne.  He  was  a  cobbler,  named  Simon,  the  very  same 
to  whose  cruel  superintendence  the  little  king  was  presently  in- 
trusted. 

He  came  down  the  very  evening  that  every  thing  was  arranged 
for  the  escape  of  the  hapless  family.  De  Batz  saw  that  all  was 
over  if  he  staid,  and  hesitated  for  a  moment  whether  he  should 
blow  out  his  brains,  and  try  to  accomplish  the  queen's  deliverance 
by  force ;  but  a  little  reflection  showed  him  that  the  noise  of  fire- 
arms would  bring  up  a  crowd  of  enemies  beyond  his  ability  to 
overpower,  and  it  soon  appeared  that  it  would  tax  all  his  re- 
sources to  secure  his  own  escape.  He  achieved  that,  hoping  still 
to  find  some  other  opportunity  of  being  useful  to  his  royal  mis- 
tress ;  but  none  offered.  The  Assembly  did  him  the  honor  to 
set  a  price  on  his  head ;  and  at  last  he  thought  himself  fortunate 
in  being  able  to  save  himself.  Those  who  had  co-operated  with 
him  had  worse  fortune.  Those  in  authority  had  no  proofs  on 
which  to  condemn  them ;  but  in  those  days  suspicion  was  a  suffi- 
cient death-warrant.  Michonis  and  Cortey  were  suspected,  and 
in  the  course  of  the  next  year  a  belief  that  they  had  at  least  sym- 
pathized with  the  queen's  sorrows  sent  them  both  to  the  scaffold. 

With  the  failure  of  De  Batz  every  project  of  escape  was  aban- 
doned ;  and  a  few  weeks  later  the  queen  congratulated  herself 
that  she  had  refused  to  flee  without  her  boy,  since  in  the  course 
of  May  he  was  seized  with  illness  which  for  some  days  threat- 
ened to  assume  a  dangerous  character.  With  a  brutality  which, 
even  in  such  monsters  as  the  Jacobin  rulers  of  the  city,  seems  al- 
most inconceivable,  they  refused  to  allow  him  the  attendance  of 
M.  Brunier,  the  physician  who  had  had  the  charge  of  his  infancy. 
It  would  be  a  breach  of  the  principles  of  equality,  they  said,  if 
any  prisoner  were  permitted  to  consult  any  but  the  prison  doctor. 
But  the  prison  doctor  was  a  man  of  sense  and  humanity,  as  well 
as  of  professional  skill.  He  of  his  own  accord  sought  the  advice 
of  Brunier ;  and  the  poor  child  recovered,  to  be  reserved  for  a 
fate  which,  even  in  the  next  few  weeks,  was  so  foreshadowed,  that 
his  own  mother  must  almost  have  begun  to  doubt  whether  his 
restoration  to  health  had  been  a  blessing  to  her  or  to  himself. 

The  spring  was  marked  by  important  events.  Had  one  so 
high-minded  been  capable  of  exulting  in  the  misfortunes  of  even 


FALL  OF  THE  GIRONDINS.  449 

her  worst  enemies,  Marie  Antoinette  might  have  triumphed  in  the 
knowledge  that  the  murderers  of  her  husband  were  already  begin- 
ning that  work  of  mutual  destruction  which  in  little  more  than  a 
year  sent  almost  every  one  of  them  to  the  same  scaffold  on  which 
he  had  perished.  The  jealousies  which  from  the  first  had  set  the 
Jacobins  and  Girondins  at  variance  had  reached  a  height  at  which 
they  could  only  be  extinguished  by  the  annihilation  of  one  party 
or  the  other.  They  had  been  partners  in  crime,  and  so  far  were 
equal  in  infamy ;  but  the  Jacobins  were  the  fiercer  and  the  read- 
ier ruffians ;  and,  after  nearly  two  months  of  vehement  debates  in 
the  Convention,  in  which  Kobespierre  denounced  the  whole  body 
of  the  Girondin  leaders  as  plotters  of  treason  against  the  State, 
and  Vergniaud  in  reply  reviled  Robespierre  as  a  coward,  the  Jac- 
obins worked  up  the  mob  to  rise  in  their  support.  The  Con- 
vention, which  hitherto  had  been  divided  in  something  like  equali- 
ty between  the  two  factions,  yielded  to  the  terror  of  a  new  insur- 
rection, and  on  the  2d  of  June  ordered  the  arrest  of  the  Girondin 
leaders.  A  very  few  escaped  the  search  made  for  them  by  the 
officers  —  Roland,  to  commit  suicide;  Barbaroux,  to  attempt  it; 
Petion  and  Buzot  reached  the  forests  to  be  devoured  by  congeni- 
al wolves.  Lanjuinais,*  whom  the  decree  of  the  Convention  had 
identified  with  them,  but  who,  even  in  the  moments  of  the  great- 
est excitement,  had  kept  himself  clear  of  their  wickedness  and 
crimes,  was  the  only  one  of  the  whole  body  who  completely 
eluded  the  rage  of  his  enemies.  The  rest,  with  Madame  Roland, 
the  first  prompter  of  deeds  of  blood,  languished  in  their  well-de- 
served prisons  till  the  close  of  autumn,  when  they  all  perished  on 
the  same  scaffold  to  which  they  had  sent  their  innocent  sover- 
eign.f 

*  Lanjuinais  had  subsequently  the  singular  fortune  of  gaining  the  confi- 
dence of  both  Napoleon  and  Louis  XVIII.  The  decree  against  him  was  re- 
versed in  1795,  and  he  became  a  professor  at  Rennes.  Though  he  had  op- 
posed the  making  of  Napoleon  consul  for  life,  Napoleon  gave  him  a  place  in 
his  Senate  ;  and  at  the  first  restoration,  in  1814,  Louis  XVIII.  named  him  a 
peer  of  France.  He  died  in  1827. 

f  Some  of  the  apologists  of  the  Girondins — for  nearly  all  the  oldest  crimi- 
nals of  the  Revolution  have  found  defenders,  except  perhaps  Marat  and  Robes- 
pierre— have  affirmed  that  the  Girondins,  though  they  had  not  courage  to  give 
their  votes  to  save  the  life  of  Louis,  yet  hoped  to  save  him  by  voting  for  an 
appeal  to  the  people ;  but  the  order  in  which  the  different  questions  were  put 
to  the  Convention  is  a  complete  disproof  of  this  plea.  The  first  question  put 
was,  Was  Louis  guilty  ?  They  all  voted  "  Oui "  (Lacretelle,  x.,  p.  403).  But 

29 


450  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

But  it  may  be  that  Marie  Antoinette  never  learned  their  fall ; 
though  that  if  she  had,  pity  would  at  least  have  mingled  with,  if 
it  had  not  predominated  over,  her  natural  exultation,  she  gave  a 
striking  proof  in  her  conduct  toward  one  from  whom  she  had 
suffered  great  and  constant  indignities.  From  the  time  that  her 
own  attendants  were  dismissed,  the  only  persons  appointed  to  as- 
sist Clcry  in  his  duties  were  a  man  and  woman  named  Tison, 
chosen  for  that  task  on  account  of  their  surly  and  brutal  tempers, 
in  which  the  wife  exceeded  her  husband.  Both,  and  especially 
the  woman,  had  taken  a  fiendish  pleasure  in  heaping  gratuitous 
insults  on  the  whole  family ;  but  at  last  the  dignity  and  resigna- 
tion of  the  queen  awakened  remorse  in  the  woman's  heart,  which 
presently  worked  upon  her  to  such  a  degree  that  she  became  mad. 
In  the  first  days  of  her  frenzy  she  raved  up  and  down  the  court- 
yard declaring  herself  guilty  of  the  queen's  murder.  She  threw 
herself  at  Marie  Antoinette's  feet,  imploring  her  pardon ;  and 
Marie  Antoinette  not  only  raised  her  up  with  her  own  hand,  and 
spoke  gentle  words  of  forgiveness  and  consolation  to  her,  but, 
after  she  had  been  removed  to  a  hospital,  showed  a  kind  interest 
in  her  condition,  and  amidst  all  her  own  troubles  found  time  to 
write  a  note  to  express  her  anxiety  that  the  invalid  should  have 
proper  attention.* 

But  very  soon  a  fresh  blow  was  struck  at  the  hapless  queen 
which  made  her  indifferent  to  all  else  that  could  happen,  and  even 
to  her  own  fate,  of  which  it  may  be  regarded  as  the  precursor. 
At  ten  o'clock  on  the  3d  of  July,  when  the  little  king  was  sleep- 
ing calmly,  his  mother  having  hung  a  shawl  in  front  of  his  bed 
to  screen  his  eyes  from  the  light  of  the  candle  by  which  she  and 
Elizabeth  were  mending  their  clothes,  the  door  of  their  chamber 
was  violently  thrown  open,  and  six  commissioners  entered  to  an- 

though  on  the  second  question,  whether  this  verdict  should  be  submitted  to 
the  people  for  ratification,  many  of  them  did  vote  for  such  an  appeal  being 
made,  yet  after  the  appeal  had  been  rejected  by  a  majority  of  one  hundred 
and  forty-two,  and  the  third  question, "  What  penalty  shall  be  inflicted  on 
Louis?"  (Lacretelle,  x.,  p.  441)  was  put  to  the  Convention,  they  all  except 
Lanjuinais  voted  for  "  death."  The  majorities  were,  on  the  first  question,  683 
to  66  ;  on  the  second,  423  to  281 ;  on  the  third,  387  to  334 ;  so  that  on  this 
last,  the  fatal  question,  it  would  have  been  easy  for  the  Girondins  to  have 
turned  the  scale.  And  Lamartine  himself  expressly  affirms  (xxxv.,  p.  5)  that 
the  king's  life  depended  on  the  Girondin  vote,  and  that  his  death  was  chiefly 
owing  to  Vergniaud. 

*  Goncourt,  p.  370,  quoting  "  Fragments  de  Turgy." 


HER  SON  IS  SEPARATED  FROM  HER.  451 

nounce  to  the  queen  that  the  Convention  had  ordered  the  re- 
moval of  her  boy,  that  he  might  be  committed  to  the  care  of  a 
tutor — the  tutor  named  being  the  cobbler,  Simon,  whose  savage- 
ness  of  disposition  was  sufficiently  attested  by  the  fact  of  his 
having  been  chosen  on  the  recommendation  of  Marat.  At  this 
unexpected  blow,  Marie  Antoinette's  fortitude  and  resignation  at 
last  gave  way.  She  wept,  she  remonstrated,  she  humbled  her- 
self to  entreat  mercy.  She  threw  her  arms  around  her  child,  and 
declared  that  force  itself  should  not  tear  him  from  her.  The 
commissioners  were  not  men  likely  to  feel  or  show  pity.  They 
abused  her;  they  threatened  her.  She  begged  them  rather  to 
kill  her  than  take  her  son.  They  would  not  kill  her,  but  they 
swore  that  they  would  murder  both  him  and  her  daughter  before 
her  eyes  if  he  were  not  at  once  surrendered.  There  was  no  more 
resistance.  His  aunt  and  sister  took  him  from  the  bed  and 
dressed  him.  His  mother,  with  a  voice  choked  by  her  sobs,  ad- 
dressed him  the  last  words  he  was  ever  to  hear  from  her.  "  My 
child,  they  are  taking  you  from  me ;  never  forget  the  mother  who 
loves  you  tenderly,  and  never  forget  God !  Be  good,  gentle,  and 
honest,  and  your  father  will  look  down  on  you  from  heaven  and 
bless  you !"  "  Have  you  done  with  this  preaching  ?"  said  the  chief 
commissioner.  "You  have  abused  our  patience  finely,"  another 
added ;  "  the  nation  is  generous,  and  will  take  care  of  his  educa- 
tion." But  she  had  fainted,  and  heard  not  these  words  of  mock- 
ing cruelty.  Nothing  could  touch  her  further. 

If  it  be  not  also  a  mockery  to  speak  of  happiness  in  connec- 
tion with  this  most  afflicted  queen,  she  was  happy  in  at  least  not 
knowing  the  details  of  the  education  which  was  in  store  for  the 
noble  boy  whose  birth  had  apparently  secured  for  him  the  most 
splendid  of  positions,  and  whose  opening  virtues  seemed  to  give 
every  promise  that  he  would  be  worthy  of  his  rank  and  of  his 
mother.  A  few  days  afterward  Simon  received  his  instructions 
from  a  committee  of  the  Convention,  of  which  Drouet,  the  post- 
master of  Ste.  Menehould,  was  the  chief.  "  How  was  he  to  treat 
the  wolf  cub?"  he  asked  (it  was  one  of  the  mildest  names  he  ever 
gave  him).  "  Was  he  to  kill  him  ?"  "  No."  "  To  poison  him «" 
"  No."  "  What  then ?"  "He  was  to  get  rid  of  him,"*  and  Si- 
mon carried  out  this  instruction  by  the  most  unremitting  ill-treat- 

*  "  S'en  d6faire." — Louis  XVII.,  ta  Vie,  son  Agorue,  sa  Mort,  par  M.  de  Beau- 
chesne,  quoting  Senart.  See  Croker's  "  Essays  on  the  Revolution,"  p.  266. 


452  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

meat  of  his  pupil.  He  imposed  upon  him  the  most  menial  of- 
fices ;  he  made  him  clean  his  shoes  ;  he  reviled  him  ;  he  beat  him  ; 
he  compelled  him  to  wear  the  red  cap  and  jacket  which  had  been 
adopted  as  the  Revolutionary  dress ;  and  one  day,  when  his  moth- 
er obtained  a  glimpse  of  him  as  he  was  walking  on  the  leads  of 
the  tower  to  which  he  had  been  transferred,  it  caused  her  an  ad- 
ditional pang  to  see  that  he  had  been  stripped  of  the  suit  of 
mourning  for  his  father,  and  had  been  clothed  in  the  garments 
which,  in  her  eyes,  were  the  symbol  of  all  that  was  most  impious 
and  most  loathsome. 

All  these  outrages  were  but  the  prelude  of  the  final  blow  which 
was  to  fall  on  herself ;  and  it  shows  how  great  was  the  fear  with 
which  her  lofty  resolution  had  always  inspired  the  Jacobins — fear 
with  such  natures  being  always  the  greatest  exasperation  of  ha- 
tred and  the  keenest  incentive  to  cruelty — that,  when  they  had 
resolved  to  consummate  her  injuries  by  her  murder,  they  did  not 
leave  her  in  the  Temple  as  they  had  left  her  husband,  but  re- 
moved her  to  the  Conciergerie,  which  in,  those  days,  fitly  denom- 
inated the  Reign  of  Terror,  rarely  led  but  to  the  scaffold.  On  the 
night  of  the  1st  of  August  (the  darkest  hours  were  appropriately 
chosen  for  deeds  of  such  darkness)  another  body  of  commission- 
ers entered  her  room,  and  woke  her  up  to  announce  that  they  had 
come  to  conduct  her  to  the  common  prison.  Her  sister  and  her 
daughter  begged  in  vain  to  be  allowed  to  accompany  her.  She 
herself  scarcely  spoke  a  word,  but  dressed  herself  in  silence,  made 
up  a  small  bundle  of  clothes,  and,  after  a  few  words  of  farewell 
and  comfort  to  those  dear  ones  who  had  hitherto  been  her  com- 
panions, followed  her  jailers  unresistingly,  knowing,  and  for  her 
own  sake  certainly  not  grieving,  that  she  was  going  to  meet  her 
doom.  As  she  passed  through  the  outer  door  it  was  so  low  that 
she  struck  her  head.  One  of  the  commissioners  had  so  much  de- 
cency left  as  to  ask  if  she  was  hurt.  "  No,"  she  replied,  "  noth- 
ing now  can  hurt  me."*  Six  weeks  later,  an  English  gentleman 
saw  her  in  her  dungeon.  She  was  freely  exhibited  to  any  one 
who  desired  to  behold  her,  on  the  sole  condition — a  condition 
worthy  of  the  monsters  who  exacted  it,  and  of  them  alone — that 
he  should  show  no  sign  of  sympathy  or  sorrow.f  "  She  was  sit- 


*  Duchesse  d'Angouleme,  p.  78. 

f  See  a  letter  from  Miss  Chowne  to  Lord  Auckland,  September  23d,  1793, 
Journal,  etc.,  of  Lord  Auckland,  ii.,  p.  517. 


APPEAL   OF  MADAME  DE  STAEL.  453 

ting  on  an  old  worn-out  chair  made  of  straw  which  scarcely  sup- 
ported her  weight.  Dressed  in  a  gown  which  had  once  been 
white,  her  attitude  bespoke  the  immensity  of  her  grief,  which  ap- 
peared to  have  created  a  kind  of  stupor,  that  fortunately  render- 
ed her  less  sensible  to  the  injuries  and  reproaches  which  a  num- 
ber of  inhuman  wretches  were  continually  vomiting  forth  against 
her." 

Even  after  all  the  atrocities  and  horrors  of  the  last  twelve 
months,  the  news  of  the  resolution  to  bring  her  to  a  trial,  which, 
it  was  impossible  to  doubt,  it  was  intended  to  follow  up  by  her 
execution,  was  received  as  a  shock  by  the  great  bulk  of  the  na- 
tion, as  indeed  by  all  Europe.  And  Necker's  daughter,  Madame 
de  Stael,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  formerly  desirous  to  aid 
in  her  escape,  now  addressed  an  energetic  and  eloquent  appeal  to 
the  entire  people,  calling  on  all  persons  of  all  parties,  "Repub- 
licans, Constitutionalists,  and  Aristocrats  alike,  to  unite  for  her 
preservation."  She  left  unemployed  no  fervor  of  entreaty,  no 
depth  of  argument.  She  reminded  them  of  the  universal  admi- 
ration which  the  queen's  beauty  and  grace  had  formerly  excited, 
when  "all  France  thought  itself  laid  under  an  obligation  by  her 
charms  ;"*  of  the  affection  that  she  had  won  by  her  ceaseless  acts 
of  beneficence  and  generosity.  She  showed  the  absurdity  of  de- 
nouncing her  as  "  the  Austrian  " — her  who  had  left  Vienna  while 
still  little  more  than  a  child,  and  had  ever  since  fixed  her  heart  as 
well  as  her  home  in  France.  She  argued  truly  that  the  vague- 
ness, the  ridiculousness,  the  notorious  falsehood  of  the  accusa- 
tions brought  against  her  were  in  themselves  her  all-sufficient  de- 
fense. She  showed  how  useless  to  every  party  and  in  every  point 
of  view  must  be  her  condemnation.  What  danger  could  any  one 
apprehend  from  restoring  to  liberty  a  princess  whose  every  thought 
was  tenderness  and  piety  ?  She  reproached  those  who  now  held 
sway  in  France  with  the  barbarity  of  their  proscriptions,  with  gov- 
erning by  terror  and  by  death,  with  having  overthrown  a  throne 
only  to  erect  a  scaffold  in  its  place ;  and  she  declared  that  the 
execution  of  the  queen  would  exceed  in  foulness  all  the  other 
crimes  that  they  had  yet  committed.  She  was  a  foreigner,  she 
was  a  woman ;  to  put  her  to  death  would  be  a  violation  of  all  the 
laws  of  hospitality  as  well  as  of  all  the  laws  of  nature.  The  whole 

*  "  Le  peuple  la  n-,;u t  non  seulement  corame  une  reine  adorde,  mais  il  sem- 
blait  aussi  qu'il  lui  savait  gr4  d'etre  charmante,"  p.  5,  ed.  1820. 


454  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

universe  was  interesting  itself  in  the  queen's  fate.  Woe  to  the 
nation  which  knew  neither  justice  nor  generosity !  Freedom 
would  never  be  the  destiny  of  such  a  people.* 

It  had  not  been  from  any  feeling  of  compunction  or  hesitation 
that  those  who  had  her  fate  in  their  hands  left  her  so  long  in  her 
dungeon,  but  from  the  absolute  impossibility  of  inventing  an  ac- 
cusation against  her  that  should  not  be  utterly  absurd  and  palpa- 
bly groundless.  So  difficult  did  they  find  their  task,  that  the  jail- 
er, a  man  named  Richard,  who,  when  alone,  ventured  to  show  sym- 
pathy for  her  miseries,  sought  to  encourage  her  by  the  assurance 
that  she  would  be  replaced  in  the  Temple.  But  Marie  Antoinette 
indulged  in  no  such  illusion.  She  never  doubted  that  her  death 
was  resolved  on.  "No,"  she  replied  to  his  well-meant  words  of 
hope, "  they  have  murdered  the  king ;  they  will  kill  me  in  the  same 
way.  Never  again  shall  I  see  my  unfortunate  children,  my  tender 
and  virtuous  sister."  And  the  tears  which  her  own  sufferings  could 
not  wring  from  her  flowed  freely  when  she  thought  of  what  they 
were  still  enduring. 

But  at  last  the  eagerness  for  her  destruction  overcame  all  diffi- 
culties or  scruples.  The  principal  articles  of  the  indictment  charged 
her  with  helping  to  overthrow  the  republic  and  to  effect  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  throne ;  with  having  exerted  her  influence 
over  her  husband  to  mislead  his  judgment,  to  render  him  unjust 
to  his  people,  and  to  induce  him  to  put  his  veto  on  laws  of  which 
they  desired  the  enactment ;  with  having  caused  scarcity  and  fam- 
ine ;  with  having  favored  aristocrats ;  and  with  having  kept  up  a 


*  Great  interest  was  felt  for  her  in  England.  In  October  Horace  Walpole 
writes :  "  While  assemblies  of  friends  calling  themselves  men  are  from  day  to 
day  meditating  torment  and  torture  for  his  [Louis  XVI.'s]  heroic  widow,  on 
whom,  with  all  their  power  and  malice,  and  with  every  page,  footman,  and 
chamber-maid  of  hers  in  their  reach,  and  with  the  rack  in  their  hands,  they 
have  not  been  able  to  fix  a  speck.  Nay,  do  they  not  talk  of  the  inutility  of 
evidence  ?  What  other  virtue  ever  sustained  such  an  ordeal  ?"  Walpole's 
testimony  in  such  a  matter  is  particularly  valuable,  because  he  had  not  only 
been  intimately  acquainted  with  all  the  gossip  of  the  French  capital  for  many 
years,  but  also  because  his  principal  friends  in  France  did  not  belong  to  the 
party  which  might  have  been  expected  to  be  most  favorable  to  the  queen. 
Had  there  been  the  very  slightest  foundation  for  the  calumnies  which  had 
been  propagated  against  her,  we  may  be  sure  that  such  a  person  as  Madame 
du  Deffand  would  not  only  have  heard  them,  but  would  have  been  but  too 
willing  to  believe  them.  His  denunciation  of  them  is  a  proof  that  she  knew 
their  falsehood. 


HER  TRIAL.  455 

constant  correspondence  with  her  brother,  the  emperor;  and  the 
preamble  and  the  peroration  compared  her  to  Messalina,  Agrip- 
pina,  Brunehaut,  and  Catherine  de'  Medici — to  all  the  wickedest 
women  of  whom  ancient  or  modern  history  had  preserved  a  rec- 
ord. Had  she  been  guided  by  her  own  feelings  alone,  she  would 
have  probably  disdained  to  defend  herself  against  charges  whose 
very  absurdity  proved  that  they  were  only  put  forward  as  a  pre- 
tense for  a  judgment  that  had  been  previously  decided  on.  But 
still,  as  ever,  she  thought  of  her  child,  her  fair  and  good  son,  her 
"gentle  infant,"  her  king.  While  life  lasted  she  could  never 
wholly  relinquish  the  hope  that  she  might  see  him  once  again, 
perhaps  even  that  some  unlooked-for  chance  (none  could  be  so 
unexpected  as  almost  every  occurrence  of  the  last  four  years) 
might  restore  him  and  her  to  freedom,  and  him  to  his  throne ; 
and  for  his  sake  she  resolved  to  exert  herself  to  refute  the  charges, 
and  at  least  to  establish  her  right  to  acquittal  and  deliverance. 

Louis  had  been  tried  before  the  Convention.  Marie  Antoinette 
was  to  be  condemned  by  the,  if  possible,  still  more  infamous  court 
that  had  been  established  in  the  spring  under  the  name  of  the 
Revolutionary  Tribunal;  and  on  the  13th  of  October  she  was  at 
last  conducted  before  a  small  sub-committee,  and  subjected  to  a 
private  examination.  To  every  question  she  gave  firm  and  clear 
answers.*  She  declared  that  the  French  people  had  indeed  been 
deceived,  but  not  by  her  or  by  her  husband.  She  affirmed  "  that 
the  happiness  of  France  always  had  been,  and  still  was,  the  first 
wish  of  her  heart ;"  and  that  "  she  should  not  even  regret  the  loss 
of  her  son's  throne,  if  it  led  to  the  real  happiness  of  the  country." 
She  was  taken  back  to  her  cell.  The  next  day  the  four  judges  of 
the  tribunal  took  their  seats  in  the  court.  Fouquier-Tinville,  the. 
public  prosecutor,  a  man  whose  greed  of  blood  stamped  him  with 
an  especial  hideousness,  even  in  those  days  of  universal  barbarity, 
took  his  seat  before  them ;  and  eleven  men,  the  greater  part  of 
whom  had  been  carefully  picked  from  the  very  dregs  of  the  peo- 
ple— journeymen  carpenters,  tailors,  blacksmiths,  and  discharged 
policemen — were  constituted  the  jury. 

Before  this  tribunal — we  will  not  dignify  it  with  the  name  of  a 
court  of  justice — Marie  Antoinette,  the  widow  Capet,  as  she  was 
called  in  the  indictment,  was  now  brought.  Clad  in  deep  mourn- 
ing for  her  murdered  husband,  and  aged  beyond  her  years  by  her 

*  Goncourt,  p.  388,  quoting  La  Quotidienne  of  October  17th,  18th. 


456  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

long  series  of  sorrows,  she  still  preserved  the  fearless  dignity  which 
became  her  race  and  rank  and  character.  As  she  took  her  place 
at  the  bar  and  cast  her  eyes  around  the  hall,  even  the  women  who 
thronged  the  court,  debased  as  they  were,  were  struck  by  her  lofty 
demeanor.  "  How  proud  she  is !"  was  the  exclamation,  the  only 
sign  of  nervousness  that  she  gave  being  that,  as  those  who  watch- 
ed her  closely  remarked,  she  moved  her  fingers  up  and  down  on 
the  arm  of  her  chair,  as  if  she  had  been  playing  on  the  harpsi- 
chord. The  prosecutor  brought  up  witness  after  witness ;  some 
whom  it  was  believed  that  some  ancient  hatred,  others  whom  it 
was  expected  that  some  hope  of  pardon  for  themselves,  might  in- 
duce to  give  evidence  such  as  was  required.  The  Count  d'Es- 
taing  had  always  been  connected  with  her  enemies.  Bailly,  once 
Mayor  of  Paris,  as  has  been  seen,  had  sought  a  base  popularity  by 
the  wantonness  of  the  unprovoked  insults  which  he  had  offered  to 
the  king.  Michonis  knew  that  his  head  was  imperiled  by  suspi- 
cions of  his  recent  desire  to  assist  her.  But  one  and  all  testified 
to  her  entire  innocence  of  the  different  charges  which  they  had 
been  brought  forward  to  support,  and  to  the  falsehood  of  the 
statements  contained  in  the  indictment  Her  own  replies,  when 
any  question  was  addressed  to  herself,  were  equally  in  her  favor. 
When  accused  of  having  been  the  prompter  of  the  political  meas- 
ures of  the  king's  government,  her  answer  could  not  be  denied  to 
be  in  accordance  with  the  law :  "  That  she  was  the  wife  and  sub- 
ject of  the  king,  and  could  not  be  made  responsible  for  his  resolu- 
tions and  actions."  When  charged  with  general  indifference  or 
hostility  to  the  happiness  of  the  people,  she  affirmed  with  equal 
calmness,  as  she  had  previously  declared  at  her  private  examina- 
tion, that  the  welfare  of  the  nation  had  been,  arid  always  was,  the 
first  of  her  wishes. 

Once  only  did  a  question  provoke  an  answer  in  any  other  tone 
than  that  of  a  lofty  imperturbable  equanimity.  She  had  not 
known  till  that  moment  the  depth  of  her  enemies'  wickedness,  or 
the  cruelty  with  which  her  son's  mind  had  been  dealt  with,  worse 
ten  thousand  times  than  the  foulest  tortures  that  could  be  applied 
to  the  body.  Both  her  children  had  been  subjected  to  an  exami- 
nation, in  the  hope  that  something  might  be  found  to  incriminate 
her  in  the  words  of  those  who  might  hardly  be  able  to  estimate 
the  exact  value  of  their  expressions.  The  princess  had  been  old 
enough  to  baffle  the  utmost  malice  of  her  questioners;  and  the 
boy  had  given  short  and  plain  replies  from  which  nothing  to  suit 


HER  CONDEMNATION  AND  SENTENCE.  457 

their  purpose  could  be  extracted,  till  they  forced  him  to  drink 
brandy,  and,  when  he  was  stupefied  with  drink,  compelled  him  to 
sign  depositions  in  which  he  accused  both  the  queen  and  Eliza- 
beth of  having  trained  him  in  lessons  of  vice.  At  first,  horror  at 
so  monstrous  a  charge  had  sealed  the  queen's  lips ;  but  when  she 
gave  no  denial,  a  juryman  questioned  her  on  the  subject,  and  in- 
sisted on  an  answer.  Then  at  last  Marie  Antoinette  spoke  in  sub- 
lime indignation.  "  If  I  have  not  answered,  it  was  because  nature 
itself  rejects  such  an  accusation  made  against  a  mother.  I  appeal 
from  it  to  every  mother  who  hears  me." 

Marie  Antoinette  had  been  allowed  two  counsel,  who,  perilous 
as  was  the  duty  imposed  upon  them,  cheerfully  accepted  it  as 
an  honor ;  but  it  was  not  intended  that  their  assistance  should 
be  more  than  nominal.  She  had  only  known  their  names  on  the 
evening  preceding  the  trial ;  but  when  she  addressed  a  letter  to 
the  President  of  the  Convention,  demanding  a  postponement  of 
the  trial  for  three  days,  as  indispensable  to  enable  them  to  master 
the  case,  since  as  yet  they  had  not  had  time  even  to  read  the 
whole  of  the  indictment,  adding  that  "  her  duty  to  her  children 
bound  her  to  leave  nothing  undone  which  was  requisite  for  the 
entire  justification  of  their  mother,"  the  request  was  rudely  re- 
fused ;  and  all  that  the  lawyers  could  do  was  to  address  eloquent 
appeals  to  the  judges  and  jurymen,  being  utterly  unable,  on  so 
short  notice,  to  analyze  as  they  deserved  the  arguments  of  the 
prosecutor  or  the  testimony  by  which  he  had  professed  to  sup- 
port them.  But  before  such  a  tribunal  it  signified  little  what 
was  proved  or  disproved,  or  what  was  the  strength  or  weakness  of 
the  arguments  employed  on  either  side.  It  was  long  after  mid- 
night of  the  second  day  that  the  trial  concluded.  The  jury  at 
once  pronounced  the  prisoner  guilty.  The  judges  as  instantly 
passed  sentence  of  death,  and  ordered  it  to  be  executed  the  next 
morning. 

It  was  nearly  five  in  the  morning  of  the  16th  of  October  when 
the  favorite  daughter  of  the  great  Empress-queen,  herself  Queen 
of  France,  was  led  from  the  court,  not  even  to  the  wretched  room 
which  she  had  occupied  for  the  last  ten  weeks,  but  to  the  con- 
demned cell,  never  tenanted  before  by  any  but  the  vilest  felons. 
Though  greatly  exhausted  by  the  length  of  the  proceedings,  she 
had  heard  the  sentence  without  betraying  the  slightest  emotion 
by  any  change  of  countenance  or  gesture.  On  reaching  her  cell 
she  at  once  asked  for  writing  materials.  They  had  been  with- 


458  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

held  from  her  for  more  than  a  year,  but  they  were  now  brought 
to  her ;  and  with  them  she  wrote  her  last  letter  to  that  princess 
whom  she  had  long  learned  to  love  as  a  sister  of  her  own,  who 
had  shared  her  sorrows  hitherto,  and  who,  at  no  distant  period, 
was  to  share  the  fate  which  was  now  awaiting  herself. 

"  16th  October,  4.30  A.M. 

"  It  is  to  you,  my  sister,  that  I  write  for  the  last  time.  I  have 
just  been  condemned,  not  to  a  shameful  death,  for  such  is  only 
for  criminals,  but  to  go  and  rejoin  your  brother.  Innocent  like 
him,  I  hope  to  show  the  same  firmness  in  my  last  moments.  I 
am  calm,  as  one  is  when  one's  conscience  reproaches  one  with 
nothing.  I  feel  profound  sorrow  in  leaving  my  poor  children : 
you  know  that  I  only  lived  for  them  and  for  you,  my  good  and 
tender  sister.  You  who  out  of  love  have  sacrificed  every  thing  to 
be  with  us,  in  what  a  position  do  I  leave  you !  I  have  learned 
from  the  proceedings  at  my  trial  that  my  daughter  was  separated 
from  you.  Alas !  poor  child ;  I  do  not  venture  to  write  to  her ; 
she  would  not  receive  my  letter.  I  do  not  even  know  whether 
this  will  reach  you.  Do  you  receive  my  blessing  for  both  of 
them.  I  hope  that  one  day  when  they  are  older  they  may  be 
able  to  rejoin  you,  and  to  enjoy  to  the  full  your  tender  care. 
Let  them  both  think  of  the  lesson  which  I  have  never  ceased  to 
impress  upon  them,  that  the  principles  and  the  exact  performance 
of  their  duties  are  the  chief  foundation  of  life ;  and  then  mutual 
affection  and  confidence  in  one  another  will  constitute  its  hap- 
piness. Let  my  daughter  feel  that  at  her  age  she  ought  always 
to  aid  her  brother  by  the  advice  which  her  greater  experience  and 
her  affection  may  inspire  her  to  give  him.  And  let  my  son  in 
his  turn  render  to  his  sister  all  the  care  and  all  the  services  which 
affection  can  inspire.  Let  them,  in  short,  both  feel  that,  in  what- 
ever positions  they  may  be  placed,  they  will  never  be  truly  happy 
but  through  their  union.  Let  them  follow  our  example.  In  our 
own  misfortunes  how  much  comfort  has  our  affection  for  one  an- 
other afforded  us !  And,  in  times  of  happiness,  we  have  enjoyed 
that  doubly  from  being  able  to  share  it  with  a  friend ;  and  where 
can  one  find  friends  more  tender  and  more  united  than  in  one's 
own  family  ?  Let  my  son  never  forget  the  last  words  of  his  fa- 
ther, which  I  repeat  emphatically ;  let  him  never  seek  to  avenge 
our  deaths.  I  have  to  speak  to  you  of  one  thing  which  is  very 
painful  to  my  heart,  I  know  how  much  pain  the  child  must  have 


NOBLE  SENTIMENTS  OF  THE  CONDEMNED  QUEEN.  459 

caused  you.  Forgive  him,  my  dear  sister ;  think  of  his  age,  and 
how  easy  it  is  to  make  a  child  say  whatever  one  wishes,  especially 
when  he  does  not  understand  it.*  It  will  come  to  pass  one  day, 
I  hope,  that  he  will  better  feel  the  value  of  your  kindness  and  of 
your  tender  affection  for  both  of  them.  It  remains  to  confide 
to  you  my  last  thoughts.  I  should  have  wished  to  write  them 
at  the  beginning  of  my  trial ;  but,  besides  that  they  did  not  leave 
me  any  means  of  writing,  events  have  passed  so  rapidly  that  I 
really  have  not  had  time. 

"  I  die  in  the  Catholic  Apostolic  and  Roman  religion,  that  of 
my  fathers,  that  in  which  I  was  brought  up,  and  which  I  have  al- 
ways professed.  Having  no  spiritual  consolation  to  look  for,  not 
even  knowing  whether  there  are  still  in  this  place  any  priests  of 
that  religionf  (and  indeed  the  place  where  I  am  would  expose 
them  to  too  much  danger  if  they  were  to  enter  it  but  once),  I 
sincerely  implore  pardon  of  God  for  all  the  faults  which  I  may 
have  committed  during  my  life.  I  trust  that,  in  his  goodness,  he 
will  mercifully  accept  my  last  prayers,  as  well  as  those  which  I 
have  for  a  long  time  addressed  to  him,  to  receive  my  soul  into 
his  mercy.  I  beg  pardon  of  all  whom  I  know,  and  especially  of 
you,  my  sister,  for  all  the  vexations  which,  without  intending  it, 
I  may  have  caused  you.  I  pardon  all  my  enemies  the  evils  that 
they  have  done  me.  I  bid  farewell  to  my  aunts  and  to  all  my 
brothers  and  sisters.  I  had  friends.  The  idea  of  being  forever 
separated  from  them  and  from  all  their  troubles  is  one  of  the 
greatest  sorrows  that  I  suffer  in  dying.  Let  them  at  least  know 
that  to  my  latest  moment  I  thought  of  them. 

"  Farewell,  my  good  and  tender  sister.  May  this  letter  reach 
you.  Think  always  of  me ;  I  embrace  you  with  all  my  heart,  as 
I  do  my  poor  dear  children.  My  God,  how  heart-rending  it  is  to 
leave  them  forever!  Farewell!  farewell!  I  must  now  occupy 
myself  with  my  spiritual  duties,  as  I  am  not  free  in  my  actions. 
Perhaps  they  will  bring  me  a  priest;  but  I  here  protest  that  I 
will  not  say  a  word  to  him,  but  that  I  will  treat  him  as  a  person 
absolutely  unknown." 

Her  forebodings  were  realized ;  her  letter  never  reached  Eliza- 

*  The  depositions  which  the  little  king  had  been  compelled  to  sign  contain- 
ed accusations  of  his  aunt  as  well  as  of  his  mother. 

f  As  we  shall  see  in  the  close  of  the  letter,  she  did  not  regard  those  priests 
who  had  taken  the  oath  imposed  by  the  Assembly,  but  which  the  Pope  had 
condemned,  as  any  longer  priests. 


460  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

beth,  but  was  carried  to  Fouquier,  who  placed  it  among  bis  spe- 
cial records.  Yet,  if  in  tbose  who  had  thus  wrought  the  writer's 
destruction  there  had  been  one  human  feeling,  it  might  have  been 
awakened  by  the  simple  dignity  and  unaffected  pathos  of  this 
sad  farewell.  No  line  that  she  ever  wrote  was  more  thoroughly 
characteristic  of  her.  The  innocence,  purity,  and  benevolence  of 
her  soul  shine  through  every  sentence.  Even  in  that  awful  mo- 
ment she  never  lost  her  calm,  resigned  fortitude,  nor  her  consid- 
eration for  others.  She  speaks  of  and  feels  for  her  children,  for 
her  friends,  but  never  for  herself.  And  it  is  equally  characteris- 
tic of  her  that,  even  in  her  own  hopeless  situation,  she  still  can 
cherish  hope  for  others,  and  can  look  forward  to  the  prospect  of 
those  whom  she  loves  being  hereafter  united  in  freedom  and  hap- 
piness. She  thought,  it  may  be,  that  her  own  death  would  be 
the  last  sacrifice  that  her  enemies  would  require.  And  for  even 
her  enemies  and  murderers  she  had  a  word  of  pardon,  and  could 
address  a  message  of  mercy  for  them  to  her  son,  who,  she  trusted, 
might  yet  some  day  have  power  to  show  that  mercy  she  enjoined, 
or  to  execute  the  vengeance  which  with  her  last  breath  she  depre- 
cated. 

She  threw  herself  on  her  bed  and  fell  asleep.  At  seven  she  was 
roused  by  the  executioner.  The  streets  were  already  thronged 
with  a  fierce  and  sanguinary  mob,  whose  shouts  of  triumph  were 
so  vociferous  that  she  asked  one  of  her  jailers  whether  they  would 
tear  her  to  pieces.  She  was  assured  that,  as  he  expressed  it,  they 
would  do  her  no  harm.  And  indeed  the  Jacobins  themselves 
would  have  protected  her  from  the  populace,  so  anxious  were  they 
to  heap  on  her  every  indignity  that  would  render  death  more  ter- 
rible. Louis  had  been  allowed  to  quit  the  Temple  in  his  carriage. 
Marie  Antoinette  was  to  be  drawn  from  the  prison  to  the  scaffold 
in  a  common  cart,  seated  on  a  bare  plank ;  the  executioner  by  her 
side,  holding  the  cords  with  which  her  hands  were  already  bound. 
With  a  refinement  of  barbarity,  those  who  conducted  the  proces- 
sion made  it  halt  more  than  once,  that  the  people  might  gaze 
upon  her,  pointing  her  out  to  the  mob  with  words  and  gestures 
of  the  vilest  insult.  She  heard  them  not ;  her  thoughts  were  with 
God:  her  lips  were  uttering  nothing  but  prayers.  Once  for  a 
moment,  as  she  passed  in  sight  of  the  Tuileries,  she  was  observed 
to  cast  an  agonized  look  toward  its  towers,  remembering,  perhaps, 
how  reluctantly  she  had  quit  it  fourteen  months  before.  It  was 
midday  before  the  cart  reached  the  scaffold.  As  she  descended, 


HER  TRAITS  OF  CHARACTER  SUMMARIZED.  461 

she  trod  on  the  executioner's  foot.  It  might  seem  to  have  been 
ordained  that  her  very  last  words  might  be  words  of  courtesy. 
"  Excuse  me,  sir,"  she  said,  "  I  did  not  do  it  on  purpose ;"  and  she 
added,  "  make  haste."  In  a  few  moments  all  was  over. 

Her  body  was  thrown  into  a  pit  in  the  common  cemetery,  and 
covered  with  quicklime  to  insure  its  entire  destruction.  When, 
more  than  twenty  years  afterward,  her  brother-in-law  was  restored 
to  the  throne,  and  with  pious  affection  desired  to  remove  her  re- 
mains and  those  of  her  husband  to  the  time-honored  resting-place 
of  their  royal  ancestors  at  St.  Denis,  no  remains  of  her  who  had 
once  been  the  admiration  of  all  beholders  could  be  found  beyond 
some  fragments  of  clothing,  and  one  or  two  bones,  among  which 
the  faithful  memory  of  Chateaubriand  believed  that  he  recognized 
the  mouth  whose  sweet  smile  had  been  impressed  on  his  memo- 
ry since  the  day  on  which  it  acknowledged  his  loyalty  on  his  first 
presentation,  while  still  a  boy,  at  Versailles. 

Thus  miserably  perished,  by  a  death  fit  only  for  the  vilest  of 
criminals,  Marie  Antoinette,  the  daughter  of  one  sovereign,  the 
wife  of  another,  who  had  never  wronged  or  injured  one  human 
being.  No  one  was  ever  more  richly  endowed  with  all  the 
charms  which  render  woman  attractive,  or  with  all  the  virtues 
that  make  her  admirable.  Even  in  her  earliest  years,  her  careless 
and  occasionally  undignified  levity  was  but  the  joyous  outpouring 
of  a  pure  innocence  of  heart  that,  as  it  meant  no  evil,  suspected 
none;  while  it  was  ever  blended  with  a  kindness  and  courtesy 
which  sprung  from  a  genuine  benevolence.  As  queen,  though  still 
hardly  beyond  girlhood  when  she  ascended  the  throne,  she  set  her- 
self resolutely  to  work  by  her  admonitions,  and  still  more  effectu- 
ally by  her  example,  to  purify  a  court  of  which  for  centuries  the 
most  shameless  profligacy  had  been  the  rule  and  boast ;  discoun- 
tenancing vice  and  impiety  by  her  marked  reprobation,  and  re- 
serving all  her  favor  and  protection  for  genius  and  patriotism, 
and  honor  and  virtue.  Surrounded  at  a  later  period  by  unex- 
ampled dangers  and  calamities,  she  showed  herself  equal  to  every 
vicissitude  of  fortune,  and  superior  to  its  worst  frowns.  If  her 
judgment  occasionally  erred,  it  was  in  cases  where  alternatives  of 
evil  were  alone  offered  to  her  choice,  and  in  which  it  is  even  now 
scarcely  possible  to  decide  what  course  would  have  been  wiser  or 
safer  than  that  which  she  adopted.  And  when  at  last  the  long 
conflict  was  terminated  by  the  complete  victory  of  her  combined 
enemies — when  she,  with  her  husband  and  her  children,  was  bereft 


462  LIFE  OF  MARIE  ANTOINETTE. 

not  only  of  power,  but  even  of  freedom,  and  was  a  prisoner  in  the 
hands  of  those  whose  unalterable  object  was  her  destruction — she 
bore  her  accumulated  miseries  with  a  serene  resignation,  an  in- 
trepid fortitude,  a  true  heroism  of  soul,  of  which  the  history  of  the 
world  does  not  afford  a  brighter  example. 


INDEX. 


ABB£  DE  MANWOUX,  85;  De  Sabran,  89; 
De  Sieyes,  886 ;  De  Vermond,  22, 47,  48. 

Abolition  of  titles  of  honor,  305. 

Addresses  presented  from  Paris  and  from 
the  States  of  Languedoc,  48. 

Adelaide,  Princess,  intrigues  of,  66-68; 
afflicted  with  the  small-pox, 89;  flight 
of,  330. 

Admiral  de  Coligny,  301;  d'Orvilliers, 
153 ;  du  Chaffanlt,  154 ;  Eeppel,  153 ; 
Rodney,  165, 192. 

Ailesbury,  Lady,  110,  111. 

Alliance  formed  with  the  United  States, 
145, 146 ;  with  Russia  and  Prussia,  153 ; 
with  Spain,  162. 

American  war,  the,  145. 

Anglomania  in  Paris,  167. 

Anglomanie,  a  name  given  to  English 
fashions,  119. 

Anti-Austrian  feeling  in  Paris,  112, 113. 

Antoinette,  Marie.    See  Marie  Antoinette. 

Arbitrary  powers  of  the  sovereign  of 
France,  243. 

Archbishop  Lom6nie  de  Brienne,  194. 

Archduke  Maximilian  visits  his  sister,  111. 

Arnay-le-Dnc,  where  the  king's  aunts 
were  detained,  330. 

Arnould,  Mademoiselle,  206. 

Arrest  of  Cardinal  Rohan,  216. 

Assassination  of  Gnstavns  III.  of  Sweden, 
382. 

Assembly,  parties  in  the,  "the  Right," 
"  the  Left,"  and  "  the  Plain,"  271 ;  abol- 
ishes all  privileges  August  4th,  1789, 
273 ;  disorders  in  the,  311,  312 ;  tyran- 
ny of  the,  336-338 ;  meeting  of  the  new, 
693.  ' 

Austria,  antagonistic  feeling  against,  112 ; 
Emperor  Joseph  of,  visits  France  incog- 
nito, 134-137 ;  writes  to  his  sister,  the 
Queen  of  France,  on  European  politics, 
196,  197;  Austria,  Maria  Teresa,  Em- 
press of,  20-172 ;  death  of  Joseph  II., 


Emperor  of,  293,  294;  influence  of,  in 
France,  causes  jealousy,  313,  314 ;  re- 
monstrating by  the  Emperor  Leopold 
with  the  French  Government,  355; 
death  of  Leopold,  3S2-3S4;  war  declared 
against,  387. 

Autuu,  Bishop  of,  308. 

Axel  de  Fersen,  Count,  172. 

BAGATKLI.K,  a  house  belonging  to  the 
Comte  d'Artois,  which  was  built  in  six- 
ty days,  144. 

Bailli  de  Suffreiu,  192. 

Ha  illy,  M.,  and  the  National  Guard,  265, 
266  ;  effrontery  of,  285,  353. 

"Baker,"  a  name  given  to  the  king,  274, 

Balbi,  Countess  de,  176, 379. 

Balloons  introduced  into  France  by  Mont- 
golfler,  208. 

Banquet  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  on  account 
of  the  birth  of  the  dauphin,  182. 

Barbaronx,  M.,  396, 415. 

"  Barber  of  Seville,"  play  of  the,  203. 

Barnave,  M.,  and  the  Constitutionalists, 
271,  272,  349,  355 ;  gives  advice  to  the 
queen,  390. 

Baron  de  Batz,  447  ;  de  Besenval,  159, 247, 
261 ;  de  Breteuil,  199,  259,  321. 

Baroness  de  Starl,  253, 453. 

Barri,  Countess  du,  jealous  of  Marie  An- 
toinette, 40, 41,  43, 44, 57 ;  sent  to  a  con- 
vent, 88. 

Bastile,  attack  on  the,  1789,  and  murder 
of  the  governor,  260,  261 ;  anniversary 
of  the  capture  of,  307. 

Battle  of  Brandy  wine,  146. 

Batz,  Baron  de,  447. 

Bavaria,  affairs  in,  at  the  death  of  the 
elector  in  1777, 147. 

Beauhamais,  General,  W7. 

Beaulieu,  Marshal,  388. 

Beanmarchnio,  M.,  202-207. 

Beauty  of  Marie  Antoinette,  116, 117. 


464 


INDEX. 


Bennvan,  M.  de,  and  the  Opposition,  228. 

Bertraud,  M.,  372,  373,  373,  411. 

Besenval,  Baron  de,  159 ;  and  the  Reveil- 
lon  riot,  247,  261. 

Birth  of  Due  d'Angonleme,  120;  of  the 
Princess  Murie-Therese  Charlotte  (Ma- 
dame Royal),  165;  of  the  dauphin,  sou 
of  Marie  Antoinette,  177. 

Bishop  Lamourette,  410 ;  Talleyrand,  308. 

Body-guard,  ball  given  by  the,  178;  and 
the  Versailles  mob,  2S1,  286 ;  protecting 
the  court,  342,  350. 

Boehmer,  the  court  jeweler,  214-221. 

Bouille,  Marquis  de,  163,  193,  310;  flies 
from  France,  355. 

Boutourliu's,  M.,  attacks  on  M.  Necker, 
174. 

Brandywine,  Battle  of,  146. 

Breteuil,  Baron  de,  199 :  appointed  prime 
minister,  259 ;  and  foreign  intervention, 
321. 

Breton  Club,  303. 

Brieune,  Lomenie  de,  Archbishop  of  Ton- 
louse,  194. 

Brissac,  Due  de,  79,  392. 

Brissot,  M.,  370. 

Broglie,  Marshal  de,  142,  257,  258. 

Brnnier,  M.,  448. 

Bmnoy,  entertainment  given  at,  132. 

Brunswick,  Dnke  of,  412. 

Brunswick,  Prince  Ferdinand  of,  142. 

Burke's  description  of  the  beauty  of  the 
queen,  116. 

Bnzot,  M.,  355 

CALONNE,  M.  de,  194, 195;  dismissed  from 
the  office  of  finance  minister,  227-229. 

Campan,  Madame  de,  188,  203,  264. 

Cap,  red,  of  liberty,  388. 

Cape  St.  Vincent,  165. 

Capet,  name  given  to  the  queen  before  the 
trial,  455  et  geq. 

Cardinal  de  Rohan,  189, 190,  215-222. 

Carlisle,  Lord,  receiving  a  challenge  from 
La  Fayette  in  1778, 147. 

Carnival  of  1777, 131, 132. 

Castle  of  Gaillon,  411. 

Chaffault,  Admiral  dn,  154. 

Challenge  sent  by  Marquis  de  La  Fayette 
to  Lord  Carlisle,  146, 147. 

ChAlone,  and  the  reception  of  the  king  on 
his  arrest,  348. 

Champs  de  Mars,  fete  in  the,  in  celebra- 
tion of  the  anniversary  of  the  capture 
of  the  Bastile,  307. 

Chantilly,  festivities  at, 

Charity  shown  by  Louis  XVI.  and  the 


queen  during  the  winter  of  178S-9,  238- 
240. 

Charleston,  capture  of,  169. 

Chartres,  Due  de  and  Due  d'Orleans  re- 
called from  banishment,  72;  and  the 
Comte  d'Artois  establish  horse-racing, 
119;  displays  cowardice  as  rear-adini- 
ral,  153 ;  refused  marriage  with  Madame 
Royale,  249,  250 ;  and  the  red  cap  of  lib- 
erty, 388. 

Chevalier  d'Assas,  story  of  the,  142, 143. 

Chinon,  M.  de,  277,  278. 

Choiseul,  Due  de,  46  ;  dismissal  of,  52 ;  re- 
call from  banishment,  95,  96. 

Choisy,  private  parties  at,  103. 

Clergy,  oppression  of  the,  329. 

Cldry,  M.,  refused  audience  with  the 
queen,  442  et  seq. 

Clinton,  Sir  Harry,  169. 

Clootz,  Anacharsis,  heads  a  deputation, 
304. 

Clostercamp,  the  scene  of  the  heroism  dis- 
played by  the  Chevalier  d'Assas,  143. 

Clotilde,  Princess,  marriage  of  the,^17. 

Clubs,  political,  springing  up  at  Paris,  245. 

Coigny,  Due  de,  159. 

Coligny,  Admiral  de,  and  Count  de  Mira- 
beau,  301. 

Compii-gne,  30,  31. 

Comte  d'Artois,  83,  119, 144,  154,  160,  176, 
178,  264,  333,  334,  379 ;  de  la  Marck,  173, 
290,  301,  302,  306,  324,  325;  de  Mercy,  235, 
236,  301,  312,  338-340. 

Condorcet,  Marquis  de,  386. 

Constitution,  completing  the,  by  the  As- 
sembly, 356;  acceptance  of  the,  by  the 
king,  365,  366. 

Constitutional  guard,  dissolution  of  the, 
392, 393. 

Constitutionalists,  or  "the  Plain,"  271, 
356. 

Conti,  Prince  de,  264. 

Cordeliers,  the,  354. 

Cortey.M.,  447. 

Count  d'Estaing,  163 ;  de  Fersen,  172, 173, 
341;  d'Hervilly,  398;  de  Grasse,  192;  de 
Luxembourg,  275;  de  Manrepas,  107, 
143,  200;  de  Mirabeau,  104,  217,  253-335; 
de  Narbonne,  373;  de  Roche -Aymer, 
85;  de  Rosenberg,  120;  de  Stedingk, 
172,  178;  de  St.  Priest,  278;  de  Vau- 
dreuil,  122, 123,  205 ;  Esterhazy,  159. 

Countess  de  Balbi,  176,  379;  du  Barri,  40, 
41,  43,  44,  57,  88;  de  Orarnmont,  47,  51  ; 
de  Monnier.  253,  254  ;  de  la  Mothe,  215- 
221 ;  de  Noailles,  46 ;  de  Polignac,  121 , 141 , 
181, 184,  227,  228,  264;  de  Province,  160. 


INDEX. 


465 


"Conpe-t6tes,"  the,  27T. 
Court  supper-parties,  103. 
Couthou,  M.,  371. 
Craufurd,  Mr.,  341,  342. 

D'AGOCST,  Marqnis,  232,  233. 

D'Aiguillon,  Dn<v46,  52,  84. 

Dames  de  la  Halle,  80, 157, 158, 180. 

D'Angouleme,  Due,  birth  of,  120, 170, 179. 

D'Artois,  Comte,  marriage  of  the,  83 ;  and 
the  Due  de  Chartres  establish  horse-ra- 
cing, 119 ;  his  character,  144 ;  shielding 
the  Due  de  Chartres,  154;  watching  at 
the  queen's  bedside  during  her  illness, 
160 ;  shows  contempt  for  the  commer- 
cial orders,  176,  178 ;  flees  from  Paris, 
264;  misconduct  of  the,  333,  334;  re- 
fuses to  return  to  France,  379. 

D'Assas,  Chevalier,  story  of  the,  142, 143. 

Danphiu,  proposal  of  marriage  of  Marie 
Antoinette  to  the,  24;  early  education 
of  the,  25 ;  introduction  to,  30, 31 ;  mar- 
ried at  Versailles,  May  16th,  1770, 32 ;  let- 
ter from  Maria  Teresa  to  the,  34 ;  admi- 
ration of  the,  for  his  wife,  55 ;  and  the 
Count  de  Provence,  characters  of  the,  67 ; 
birth  of  the,  son  of  Louis  XVI.,  177, 178 ; 
death  of  the,  son  of  Louis  XVI.,  June 
4th,  1789,  and  succeeded  by  his  brother, 
256 ;  and  M.  Bertrand,  378. 

Deaue,  Silas,  146. 

Death  of  Francis,  Emperor  of  Germany, 
21 ;  of  Louis  XV.,  86 ;  of  Voltaire,  153  ; 
of  Cardinal  de  Rohan,  at  Eiteuheim, 
222 ;  of  Princess  Sophie,  daughter  of  the 
queen,  226 ;  of  the  Dauphin,  son  of  Lou- 
is XVI.,  June  4th,  1789,  256;  of  Joseph 
II.,  Emperor  of  Austria,  293,  294;  of 
Connt  de  Mirabeau,  334;  of  Leopold, 
Emperor  of  Austria,  382-384. 

Debt,  the  queen  finds  herself  in,  129. 

Declaration  of  Pilnitz,  364. 

Defeat  of  De  Grasse  by  Admiral  Rodney, 
192. 

Degraves,  M.,  384. 

De  Launay,  M.,  governor  of  the  Bastile, 
death  of,  262. 

Des  Hut  tee,  M.,281. 

D'EsprSmesnil,  Dnval,  211,  231-233. 

De  Stael,  Baroness,  253. 

D'Estaing,  Count,  163. 

Destruction  of  the  Spanish  squadron  by 
the  British  at  Cape  St.  Vincent,  165. 

De  Varicourt,  M.,  281. 

D'llervilly,  Count,  898,  425  et  aeq. 

D'Hnillier,  M.,  279. 

Disorders  in  the  Assembly,  311,  312. 

30 


Dissolution  of  the  Constitutional  Guard, 
392,393. 

Distress  and  discontent  in  France  in 
1771,  56,  57 ;  general,  caused  by  the  se- 
verity of  the  winter  of  1788-89,  238-240. 

D'Oberkirch,  Madame,  188, 189. 

Donkey-riding,  50 ;  horse-riding,  63. 

D'Orleans,  Due,  and  the  Due  de  Chartres 
recalled  from  banishment,  72;  and  the 
Archduke  Maximilian,  112 ;  shows  hos- 
tility to  the  queen,  224,  225;  and  the 
presidency  of  the  club,  "Les  Enrages," 
245 ;  and  the  Reveillou  riot,  247 ;  and 
the  Versailles  mob,  281 ;  leaves  France 
fur  England,  290 ;  and  the  red  cap,  383. 

D'Ormesson,  M.,  194. 

D'Orvilliers,  Admiral,  153. 

Dronet,  M.,  345,  346. 

Due  d' Aignillon,  46,  52,  84 ;  d'Angonleme, 
120,  170,  179;  de  Brissac,  79,  392;  de 
Chartres,  72,  119,  153,  249,  250,  388 ;  de 
Choissenl,  46, 52,  95,  96 ;  de  Coigny,  159  : 
de  la  Fenillade,  304;  de  Maine,  154;  de 
la  Vangnyon,  24,  25,  43,  47,  200 ;  de  Lian- 
conrt,  396;  d'Orleans,  72,  112,  224,  225, 
247,  281,  290,  388;  de  Richelieu,  85, 86. 

Dngazon,  Madame,  367. 

Duke  of  Brunswick,  412 ;  of  Normandy, 
212 ;  Paul  of  Russia,  187,  191 ;  of  Ta- 
rouka,  20,  22. 

Duinont,  M.,  335. 

Duiuouriez,  General,  character  of,  385; 
and  the  queen,  390-393 ;  resigns  his  po- 
sition as  minister,  and  takes  command 
of  the  army,  393. 

Duportail,  M.,  316. 

Dnrautou,  M.,  384. 

Darepaire,  M.,  281. 

Durfort,  Marqnis  de,  24,  26. 

Duverney,  Paris,  202. 

EDUCATION,  the  queen's  views  of,  184-186 ; 

268,  269. 
Emigrant  prince's,  misconduct  of  the,  333, 

334. 
Emigration   from  France   repugnant  to 

Louis  XVI..  380, 381. 
Emperor  Francis  of  Germany,  21 ;  Joseph 

of  Austria,  134-137,  196,  197,  293,  294; 

Leopold  of  Austria,  355. 
Empress  Catherine,  of  Russia,  365,  366; 

Maria  Teresa,  of  Austria,  20-172. 
Encore,  the  first,  109. 
Epigram  of  Metastasio,  21. 
Ermenonville,  the  burial-place  of  Rous- 
seau, 168. 
Escape  from  prison  by  the  Countess  de  la 


466 


INDEX. 


Motha,  219,  220;  the  royal  family  pre- 
paring to.  341-346;  arrested  at  Varennes 
and  brought  back,  346. 

Esterhasy,  Count,  169. 

Etiquette,  strictness  of  court,  43 ;  relaxa- 
tion of,  144, 

Ettenheim,  Cardinal  de  Rohan  dies  at,  222. 

Execution  of  M.  de  Favras,  297. 

Expenses,  court,  retrenchment  in,  166. 

Expostulation  of  tUe  Emperor  Maximil- 
r  ian  with  hit  stater^m,  122, 

FACTIOUS  conduct  of  tfec  prjuaces  of  the 
blood,  112. 

Fall  of  Turgot,  123, 124. 

Favras,  M.  de,  execution  of,  297.    ' 

Feast  of  the  Federation,  410,  41L 

Federation,  Feast  of  the,  410, 411. 

Ferdiuand,  Duke,  of  Brunswick,  142. 

Feraen,  Count  Axel  de,  172, 173,  341. 

Feudal  Bystem,  the,  iu  Frauce,  and  its 
need  of  reform,  242-244. 

Feoillade's,  Dae  de  la,  statue  of  Louis 
XIV.,  304. 

Feuillant*.  les,  384. 

Figaro,  the  Marriage  of,  the  play  of,  202- 
207. 

Fire  at  the  H6tel  Dien,  73 ;  at  the  Palace 
of  Justice,  126,126. 

Fire-works,  explosion  of,  at  Paris,  39, 40. 

First  impressions  of  the  French  court,  42. 

Flanders,  the  regiment  of,  arrives  at  Ver- 
sailles, 275. 

Flenrieu,  M.,  316. 

Fleury,  Joly  de,  194. 

Flight  from  Paris  decided  on,  326-328. 

Fontainebleau,  the  peasant  at,  40 ;  grand 
review  at,  6S. 

Fontanges,  M.,  de,  303. 

Forgeries  of  the  queen's  name  committed, 
129, 130,  214-221, 

Fouquier,  Tiuville,  M.,  455. 

France  and  Germany,  feelings  in,  regard- 
ing Marie  Antoinette's  marriage,  33 ;  dis- 
tress and  discontent  in  1771  in,  56, 57. 

Francis,  Emperor  of  Germany,  death  of, 
21. 

Frost,  severe,  and  the  Seine  frozen  over, 
238. 

GAILLON,  Castle  of,  411. 
Gambling,  court,  44, 127, 128. 
Garden-parties  given  at  the  Trianon,  115, 

118. 
General    Beanharnais,  347;    Dumouriez, 

385, 390-393. 
General  rejoicings,  179. 


Gensonne",  M.,  370. 

Germany,  death  of  Francis,  emperor  of, 
21 ;  and  France,  feelings  in,  regarding 
Marie  Antoinette's  marriage,  33. 

Gibraltar,  siege  of,  l»2. 

Gifts  of  Le  Joyeuse  Areriement  and  La 
Ceintnre  de  la  Reine  renounced,  95. 

Girondins,  rise  of  the,  369, 370 ;  fall  of  the, 
449. 

Gluck  appointed  to  teach  the  harpsichord, 
23 ;  visits  Paris,  109, 110. 

Goethe,  28. 

Goldsmith's  prediction  of  a  French  revo- 
lution, 56. 

Grains,  war  of  the,  113. 

Grammont,  Countess  de,  47,  51. 

Grasse,  Count  de,  192. 

G u nde t,  M.,  370. 

Guimenee,  Princess  de,  127, 141, 178, 184. 

Guines,  Due  de,  159. 

Gastavus  III.,  King  of  Sweden,  at  the 
French  court,  207-209. 

HOESE-BACINO  by  Comte  d'Artois,  119. 

Hotel  de  Ville,  banquet  at  the,  on  account 
of  the  birth  of  the  dauphin,  182 ;  storm- 
ing of  the,  by  the  insurgents,  July,  1789, 
260. 

H6tel  Dieu,  great  flre  at,  73. 

Hughes,  Sir  E.,  fights  with  M.  de  Suffrein, 
192, 193. 

Hunting -field,  Marie  Antoinette  in  the, 
68-70. 

Huttes,  M.  des,  281. 

ILLUMINATIONS  in  Paris  at  the  birth  of  the 
dauphin,  183. 

Income,  settlement  of,  51. 

Indictment  drawn  up  against  the  queen, 
386. 

Inscription  on  a  snow  pyramid  erected  in 
gratitude  by  the  Parisians  for  the  char- 
ity they  received  from  their  queen  in 
the  winter  of  1788-'89,  239. 

Insolence  shown  to  the  queen  by  a  vira- 
go, 289. 

Insurgents,  the,  under  Santerre,  421-423. 

Insurrection  in  Paris,  July,  1789,  259;  of 
June  20th,  1792,  395-404 ;  of  August  5th, 
1792, 416  et  «eq. 

Intrigues  formed  against  Marie  Antoi- 
nette, 45-47,  52,  53, 170 ;  of  Madame  Ad- 
elaide, 66-68. 

"  Iphigenie,"  opera  of,  136. 

JACOBIN  CLUB,  the,  303,  304. 
Jarjayes,  Madame  de,  444  et  seq. 


INDEX. 


467 


Jason  and  Medea,  tapestry  representing 
the  history  of,  28. 

Jealousy  shown  by  the  queen's  favorites, 
141 ;  of  the  Conntess  du  Barri,  40-44 ;  of 
the  aunts,  48;  of  Austrian  influence, 
313,  314. 

Jewelry  and  Boehmer,  the  court  jeweler, 
214-221. 

Josephine  Louise,  Princess  of  Savoy,  mar- 
ried to  the  Count  de  Provence,  60. 

Joseph,  Emperor  of  Austria,  visits  France 
incognito,  134, 137 ;  writes  to  his  sister 
on  European  politics,  196, 197 ;  death  of, 
293,  294. 

Jnssieu,  Bernard  de,  115. 

Justice,  remarkable,  always  shown  by  the 
queen,  217. 

KATOITZ,  Prince,  166, 387. 

Keppel,  Admiral,  153. 

King  Uustavus  III.  of  Sweden  visits  the 

French  court,  207-209. 
Korff,  Madame  de,  342. 

LA  BELLE  LIEOEOIBE,  397. 

Lacoste,  M.,384. 

Lacy,  Marshal,  84,  85. 

Lady  Ailesbury,  110,  111 ;  Sutherland,  433. 

La  Fayette,  Marquis  de,  146 ;  and  the  Na- 
tional Guard,  265,  276-286;  and  Mira- 
bean,  290, 291 ;  demands  the  suppression 
of  titles,  305;  offered  the  sword  of  the 
Constable  of  France,  which  he  declines, 
308 ;  shows  insolence  to  the  royal  fami- 
ly, 321 ;  threatens  the  queen  with  a  di- 
vorce, 324 ;  saves  the  castle  at  Vincenues, 
331 ;  insults  the  nobles  who  come  to  pro- 
tect the  king,  332 ;  his  urgency  to  bring 
back  the  king,  who  had  been  arrested 
in  his  flight,  348 ;  arrogance  of,  352-354 ; 
shows  personal  animosity  to  the  king, 
375 ;  ordered  to  prepare  for  foreign  serv- 
ice, 381 ;  nnskillfulness  of, 387, 388 ;  shows 
much  deficiency  in  military  tactics,  406- 
408 ;  appears  before  the  Assembly,  and 
narrowly  escapes  impeachment,  408,409, 
416 ;  proposes  a  plan  for  the  royal  fami- 
ly to  escape,  410,  411 ;  flies  from  France, 
and  is  thrown  into  an  Austrian  prison, 
433. 

Lamballe,  Princess  de,  122,  141,  160,  272, 
436. 

Lambel,  M.,  305. 

Lambert,  M.,  316. 

Lameth,  Alexander,  304,  330. 

Lameth,  Charles,  305. 

Lamoignon,  M.,  230. 


Lamonrette,  Bishop,  makes  a  motion  in 
the  Assembly,  410. 

La  Muette,  at  Choisy,  palace  of,  87, 181. 

Lanjuinais,  M.,  439,  449. 

Leopold,  Emperor  of  Austria,  remon- 
strates with  the  French  government, 
355. 

Le  Patriots  Franyais,  370. 

Lepitre,  M.,  445. 

Les  Enrages,  a  political  club  formed  un- 
der the  presidency  of  the  Due  d'Orleans, 
245. 

"Les  five'nements  Imprevus,"  367. 

Lessart,  M.  de,  316,  370,  387. 

Letters  from  Maria  Teresa  to  her  daugh- 
ter. See  Maria  Teresa.  From  Marie 
Antoinette  to  her  mother.  See  Marie 
Antoinette. 

Liancourt,  Due  de,  396. 

Libelons  attacks  on  the  queen,  170,  240, 
3S9,  391. 

Liberty,  Restorer  of  French,  a  title  given 
to  the  king,  273. 

Lichtenstein,  Prince  de,  sent  as  envoy 
from  Austria,  313,  314. 

Lome"nie  de  Brienne,  Archbishop  of  Tou- 
louse, appointed  prime  minister,  194, 
229, 230;  resigns  office,  236. 

Lord  Carlisle,  147 ;  Stormont,  72. 

Lorraine,  Prince  of,  29 ;  death  of,  169. 

Lorraine,  Princess  of,  at  the  State  ball,  38. 

Louis  XIV.,  the  Due  de  la  Feuillade's 
statue  of,  304,  305. 

Louis  XV.,  character  and  life  of,  34,  35 ; 
apathy  of,  57,  58;  catches  the  small- 
pox, 85 ;  death  of,  86. 

Louis  XVI.,  receives  homage  on  the  death 
of  his  grandfather,  87 ;  influenced  by  his 
aunts,  91,  92;  gives  the  pavilion  of  the 
Little  Trianon  to  the  queen,  98, 99 ;  com- 
pared to  Louis  XII.  and  Henry  IV.,  Ill ; 
crowned  at  Rheims,  114;  concludes  an 
alliance  with  the  United  States,  145;  ex- 
empts from  the  poll-tax  all  those  una- 
ble to  pay  on  the  occasion  of  the  birth 
of  the  dauphin,  182 ;  visits  Cherbourg, 
224 ;  orders  the  arrest  of  two  members 
of  Parliament,  and  also  the  closing-np 
of  the  House,  232,  233 ;  conspicuous  for 
his  charity  during  the  winter  of  1788-'9, 
238-240;  concedes  the  chief  demands 
of  the  Commons,  246;  opens  the  States 
in  person,  May  5th,  1789.  250-252 ;  loses 
his  eldest  son,  the  dauphin,  June  4th, 
1789,  256 ;  grants  reforms  to  the  States, 
256  ;  removes  Necker,  258 ;  withdraws 
the  troops  from  Paris,  262,  263 ;  visits 


468 


INDEX. 


Paris,  and  appeals  to  the  populace,  July 
17th,  17S9,  265-267;  invites  Necker  to 
return,  264;  called  the  "Restorer  of 
French  Liberty,"  273 ;  sends  his  plate 
to  be  melted  down  for  the  benefit  of 
the  starving  citizens,  274;  adheres  to 
his  conciliatory  policy  before  the  mob 
at  Versailles,  278-280;  fixes  his  resi- 
dence at  Paris,  286 ;  accepts  the  Consti- 
tution so  far  as  it  has  been  settled,  299  ; 
accepts  the  services  of  the  Count  de 
Mirabeau,  301 ;  offers  La  Fayette  the 
sword  of  the  Constable  of  France,  which 
he  declines,  308 ;  appears  at  the  fete  at 
the  Champs  de  Mars,  308 ;  contemplates 
foreign  intervention,  320;  decides  to  re- 
move to  Moutmedy,  327 ;  report  of  at- 
tempted assassination  of,  331,  332 ;  re- 
proves the  nobles  for  coming  to  his  aid, 
332;  forbidden  to  remove  more  than 
twenty  leagues  from  Paris,  336 ;  urged 
to  escape,  338-340;  escapes,  and  is  ar- 
rested and  brought  back,  344-349;  ac- 
ceptance of  the  new  Constitution  by  the 
king,  366 ;  dissolves  the  first  constituent 
assembly,  368 ;  refuses  his  assent  to  the 
decrees  against  the  priests  and  emi- 
grants, 380  ;  issues  a  circular  condem- 
ning emigration,  380, 381 ;  apathy  of,  388, 
389 ;  made  to  put  on  the  red  cap  of  lib- 
erty, 400 ;  a  plot  discovered  to  assassin- 
ate, 409 ;  appears  at  the  Feast  of  Feder- 
ation, 410 ;  holds  his  last  ball,  August 
5th,  1792,  415,  416;  reviews  the  troops 
for  the  last  time,  419,  420 ;  appeals  to 
the  Assembly  for  protection,  422  et  seq. ; 
receives  notice  that  his  authority  is  a 
nullity,  427, 428 ;  made  prisoner  with  his 
wife  and  family,  428,  429;  sent  to  the 
Temple,  431 ;  trial  of,  438  et  seq. ;  in- 
sults offered  to,  437  et  seq. ;  condemned 
to  death,  439  ;  execution  of,  441. 

Louvre,  visit  by  the  dauphin  and  dau- 
phiness  to  the,  81. 

Luckner,  Marshal,  381. 

Luxembourg,  Count  de,  and  the  military 
banquet  at  Versailles,  275. 

Luzerne,  M.  de.,  283. 

"MADAME  DEFICIT,"  a  nickname  given  to 

the  queen,  225. 
Madame  Royale  refused  in  marriage  to 

the  Due  de  Chartres,  249,  250. 
Maillard,  M.,  and  the  insurgents  of  1789, 

276. 

Mailly,  Marshal  de,  416. 
Maine,  Duke  de,  154. 


Malesherbes,  M.,  439. 

Malonet,  M.,366. 

Mandut,  M.,  417-419;  assassination  of,  419. 

Mandeuse,  Abbe,  85. 

Marat,  M.,  denounces  the  queen,  314,  316. 

Marchioness  de  Tourzel,  267-269. 

Marck,  Count  de  la,  173,  290,  301,  302,  306, 
324,  325. 

Maria  Teresa,  Empress  of  Austria,  her 
habits  and  life,  20-23 ;  her  feelings  at 
the  departure  of  her  daughter,  27;  letter 
from,  to  the  dauphin,  34 ;  letter  of  ad- 
vice to  her  daughter,  36,  37 ;  appoints 
Comte  de  Mercy  as  Embassador  to 
France,  37 ;  letters  from  Marie  Antoi- 
nette to,  42-44 ;  advice  to  Marie  Antoi- 
nette, 59,  60 ;  disapproval  of  her  daugh- 
ter appearing  in  the  hunting-field,  68- 
70 ;  expresses  her  approval  of  her  daugh- 
ter's liberality,  74 ;  receives  a  letter  from 
her  daughter  ou  her  state  entrance  into 
Paris,  77,  78 ;  anxieties  about  her  daugh- 
ter since  her  accession  as  qneen  of 
France,  90,  91 ;  cautions  her  daughter 
against  extravagances,  99, 100 ;  admon- 
ishes her  daughter,  130, 131 ;  solicits  an 
alliance  between  France  and  Austria 
against  Prussia,  147 ;  writes  about  the 
birth  of  her  daughter's  child,  156 ;  death 
of,  170-172. 

Marie  Antoinette,  importance  of,  in  the 
French  Revolution  of  17S9, 17 ;  estima- 
tion of  her  character  formed  from  her 
correspondences,  17, 18  ;  her  birth,  No- 
vember 2d,  1755,  20;  her  childhood,  21, 
22 ;  projects  for  her  marriage,  22 ;  her 
education,  22 ;  proposal  of  marriage  to 
the  dauphin,  24;  leaves  Vienna  April 
26th,  1770,  26;  Strasburg,  reception  at, 
28;  at  Soissons,  30;  meeting  the  king 
and  dauphin  at  Compiegue,  30,  31 ;  visits 
the  Princess  Louise  at  the  Convent  of 
St.  Denis,  31 ;  married  at  Versailles,  May 
16th,  1770,  32 ;  difficulties  in  the  path  of, 
35,  36;  courage  in  her  conduct,  36;  let- 
ter of  advice  from  her  mother,  36,  37 ; 
her  sympathy  with  the  sufferers  at  the 
fire-work  explosion  at  Paris  and  with  the 
peasant  at  Fontaineblean  pleases  the 
king  and  the  people,  39, 40 ;  description 
of  her  personal  appearance,  40, 41 ;  writes 
to  her  mother,  giving  her  first  impres- 
sions of  the  court  and  of  her  own  posi- 
tion and  prospects,  42-44  ;  dislike  to  the 
court  etiquette,  45;  intrigues  formed 
against,  46-47 ;  jealousy  of  the  aunts,  48; 
addresses  from  Paris  and  the  states  of 


INDEX. 


469 


Laugnedoc,  48 ;  gaining  popularity,  48, 
49 ;  expresses  a  wish  to  learn  to  ride,  49 ; 
doukey-ridiug,  50 ;  settlement  of  income 
upon,  51;  introduces  sledging  parties 
into  France,  53 ;  gains  admiration  from 
her  husband,  55;  advice  of  Maria  Te- 
resa, 58,  59;  growing  preference  of 
Louis  XV.  for,  61 ;  becomes  a  horse- 
woman, 63 ;  applying  herself  to  study, 
64,  65 ;  taste  for  music  acquired  by,  65 ; 
appears  at  a  review  at  Foutainebleau, 
68;  in  the  hunting-field,  68-TO;  writes 
to  her  mother  early  in  1773,  71 ;  liber- 
ality shown  by,  to  the  sufferers  by  the 
fire  at  the  Hotel  Dien,  73 ;  receives  ap- 
proval from  her  mother,  74;  expresses 
her  feelings  about  Poland,  75 ;  state  en- 
trance of,  into  Paris,  79, 80 ;  writes  to  her 
mother,  77,  78 ;  presiding  at  the  banquet 
of  the  Dames  de  la  Halle,  30 ;  visiting 
the  Parisian  theatres,  81 ;  writes  to  her 
mother  on  the  death  of  Louis  XV.,  88- 
90 ;  shows  her  good  character  upon  her 
accession  as  queen  of  France,  93-95; 
procures  the  recall  from  banishment  of 
the  Due  de  Choiseul,  95,  96 ;  receives 
from  the  king  the  pavilion  of  the  Lit- 
tle Trianon,  98,  99 ;  desires  for  private 
friendships  and  constant  amusements, 
101,  102;  accused  of  Austrian  prefer- 
ences, 104,  105;  receives  increased  al- 
lowance as  queen,  108;  visited  by  the 
Archduke  Maximilian,  111 ;  writes  to 
her  mother  on  the  coronation  of  the 
king,  114,  115 ;  gives  garden  parties  at 
Trianon,  116;  beauty  of,  116, 117 ;  shows 
her  mortification  at  not  having  children, 
120 ;  speaks  disparagingly  of  the  king, 
120, 121 ;  writes  to  her  mother  extolling 
the  French  people,  125, 126;  indulges  at 
the  play-table,  127 ;  finds  herself  in  debt 
and  forgeries  of  her  name  committed, 
129,-lSO;  receives  the  Duke  of  Dorset 
and  others  with  favor,  132:  receives  a 
visit  from  her  brother,  the  Emperor  of 
Austria,  134-137;  writes  to  her  mother 
concerning  the  emperor's  visit,  137, 138 ; 
receives  a  letter  of  advice  from  her 
brother  on  his  departure  from  France, 
138-140 ;  inviting  the  king's  ministers 
to  the  Little  Trianon,  143  ;  writes  polit- 
ical letters,  149-151 ;  expects  to  become 
a  mother,  151 ;  declines  to  receive  Vol- 
taire on  his  return  to  France,  152 ;  gives 
birth  to  a  daughter,  whom  she  names 
Marie  Theri-se  Charlotte,  155;  goes  to 
Notre  Dame  Cathedral  to  return  thanks, 


158 ;  goes  in  a  hackney-coach  to  a  bal 
d'opera,  159;  is  attacked  by  measles, 
159  ;  writes  to  her  mother  about  the  war 
between  France  and  England,  161-163 ; 
studies  politics,  165 ;  engages  in  private 
theatricals,  168 ;  writes  to  her  mother  in 
the  midst  of  her  troubles,  169 ;  exhibits 
great  grief  at  the  death  of  her  mother, 
170-172;  gives  birth  to  a  son,  the  dau- 
phin of  France,  177,  178;  on  education, 
184-186;  receives  M.  de  Suffrein  witli 
great  honor,  193  ;  receives  a  letter  from 
her  brother,  the  Emperor  of  Austria,  on 
European  politics,  and  replies  to  it,  196- 
200 ;  St.  Cloud  is  bought  for,  210 ;  gives 
birth  to  the  Duke  of  Normandy,  212 ; 
finds  that  her  name  has  been  forged  and 
misrepresentations  made  for  procuring 
a  necklace  made  by  Boehmer,  215 ;  re- 
ceives a  visit  from  her  sister,  the  Prin- 
cess of  Teschen,  224;  is  treated  with 
hostility  by  the  Due  d'Orleans,  224,  225 ; 
receives  the  nickname  of  "  Madame  De- 
ficit." 225;  loses  her  second  daughter, 
the  Princess  Sophie,  226;  writes  two 
political  letters  to  the  Duchess  de  Poli- 
guac,  227,  228 ;  writes  to  Mercy  on  the 
present  political  state  of  affairs,  Au- 
gust 19th,  1788, 235,  236 ;  conspicuous  for 
her  charity  during  a  severe  winter,  238- 
.240;  has  serious  views  about  the  de- 
mands of  the  commons,  246 ;  refuses  to 
accept  the  Due  de  Chartres  for  husband 
to  her  daughter  Madame  Royale,  249, 
250 ;  attends  the  opening  of  the  States, 
250, 251 ;  loses  her  eldest  son,  the  dau- 
phin, June  4th.  1789,  256 ;  writes  to  the 
Duchess  de  Poliguac  on  the  States'  af- 
fairs, 258, 259 ;  writes  to  the  Marchioness 
de  TonraeL,  intrusting  to  her  the  educa- 
tion of  her  children,  268, 269 ;  rejects  Bar- 
nave's  overtures,  272  ;  is  remarkable  for 
her  bravery,  282-286;  writes  to  Mercy 
about  her  feelings  at  the  present  aspect 
of  affairs,  288,  269 ;  receives  insolence 
from  a  virago,  289 ;  feels  the  death  of 
her  brother,  the  Emperor  Joseph  II.  of 
Austria,  293,  294 ;  writes  to  her  brother 
Leopold,  who  succeeded  Joseph  II.,  293, 
294;  refuses  to  give  evidence  against 
the  mob  rioters,  295,  296 ;  shows  kind 
feeling  toward  the  widowed  Marchioness 
de  Favras,  298 ;  makes  a  speech  to  the 
deputies,  299,  300 ;  is  well  received  at 
the  theatre,  300 ;  receives  the  services 
of  the  Count  de  Mirabeau,  301,  802 ;  in- 
terviews him,  305,  306 ;  shows  her  pres- 


470 


INDEX. 


ence  of  mind  at  the  ffcte  at  the  Champ 
de  Mar*,  308,  309 ;  writes  to  Mercy  about 
the  difficulty  of  managing  Mirabean, 
312 ;  has  to  bid  farewell  to  Mercy,  who 
is  removed  to  the  Hague,  312 ;  gives  au- 
dience to  Prince  de  Lichtenstein,  313; 
denounced  by  Marat,  314,  315;  attempts 
made  to  assassinate,  315;  writes  to  the 
Emperor  of  Austria,  her  brother  Leo- 
pold, October  22d,  1790,  318;  refuses  to 
quit  France  by  herself,  323 ;  is  threaten- 
ed with  a  divorce  by  La  Fayette,  324: 
writes  to  the  Comte  d'Artois,  expostu- 
lating with  him,  333;  writes  to  her 
brother  to  send  troops  to  intervene, 
337;  escapes  from  Paris  with  her  family, 
and  is  arrested  and  brought  back,  344- 
349;  writes  to  De  Fersen,  352;  writes 
to  her  brother,  Emperor  Leopold,  357- 
360 ;  sends  a  letter  to  Mercy  about  the 
Revolution,  360-363;  writes  to  Mercy 
about  the  declaration  of  Pilnitz  and  the 
Constitution,  364,  365  ;  declares  her  feel- 
ings in  a  letter  to  the  Empress  Catherine 
of  Russia,  365,  366;  M.  Bertrand  and  the 
queen,  377,  378;  receives  news  of  the 
death  of  her  brother  Leopold,  the  Em- 
peror of  Austria,  3S2-3S4;  direct  at- 
tacks made  against,  386-392 :  Dumonriez 
speaks  his  mlnrl  strongly  to,  39(1-393; 
appears  before  the  insurrectionists  at 
the  Tuileries,  June  20th,  1793,  395-404; 
writes  to  Mercy,  July  4th,  1792,  404,  405  ; 
receives  proposals  for  her  escape,  405; 
writes  to  the  Landgravine  Louise,  405, 
40C:  employs  her  time  in  quilting  her 
husband  a  waistcoat  to  resist  a  dagger 
or  a  bullet,  409 ;  attempt  made  to  assas- 
sinate, 409 ;  determines  to  sacrifice  per- 
sonal safety  to  loss  of  the  crown  and 
Constitution,  412-414;  made  prisoner 
with  her  husband,  42S,  429;  plans  form- 
ed for  the  escape  of,  fail,  444  et  seq. ;  ad- 
ditional insults  offered  to,445e<s«7. ;  has 
a  trial  and  is  sentenced,  455-457;  writes 
a  tinal  letter  to  the  Princess  Elizabeth, 
45S,  459 ;  is  executed,  460,  461 ;  her  re- 
mains treated  with  Indignity,  4C1 ;  sum- 
mary of  the  character  of,  461,  462. 

Maritime  superiority  possessed  by  En- 
gland, 146. 

Marly,  palace  at,  42. 

Mannier,  Madame  de,  89. 

Marquis  d'Agoust,  232,  233;  de  Bonille, 
163, 193, 310 ;  de  Condorcet,  3S6;  de  Dnr- 
fort,  24,  26;  de  La  Fayette,  146,  265,  27C, 
433;  de  Moutesquieu,  206;  de  Savo- 


nieres,  279 ;  de  St.  Huruge,  397 ;  de  Van- 
dreuil,  2S2. 

"Marriage  of  Figaro,"  the  play  of  the, 
202-207. 

Marriage  of  Marie  Antoinette  to  the  Dau- 
phin of  France,  May  16th,  1770, 32 ;  feel- 
ings in  Germany  and  France  regarding 
the,  33. 

Marsan,  Madame  de,  190. 

Murseillese,  the,  428. 

Marshal  Beaulieu,  388;  de  Broglie,  142, 
257,  258 :  de  Mailly,  416 ;  Lacy,  84,  85 ; 
Luckner,  381 ;  Rochambeau,  381. 

Maubourg,  M.  La  tour,  349. 

Maurepas,  Count  de,  107, 143,  200. 

Maximilian,  Archduke,  visits  his  sister, 
111. 

Mazarin,  Madame  de,  89. 

Measles,  the  queen  is  attacked  by  the,  159. 

Mercy,  Comte  de,  appointed  as  emlmssa- 
dor  to  France,  37 ;  reports  to  Maria  Te- 
resa, 41 ;  position  and  influence  of,  upon 
the  accession  of  Louis  XVI.,  90;  re- 
ceives letters  from  the  queen  on  the 
political  state  of  affairs,  235,  236 ;  replies 
to  the  same,  236;  introduces  Count  de 
Mirabeau  to  the  queen,  301 ;  receives  let- 
ter from  the  queen  about  Mirabean,  312 ; 
is  removed  to  the  Hague,  312 ;  the  queen 
writes  urgently  to,  338-340. 

Metastasio,  epigram  of,  21. 

Michonis,  M.,447. 

Miomandre,  M.,  281. 

Mirabeau,  Count  de,  and  court  etiquette, 
104;  and  his  conjugal  rights,  217;  his 
character,  253,  2S4;  his  behavior  at  the 
opening  of  the  States,  253 - 256 ;  drives 
Necker  from  office,  and  presents  a  peti- 
tion to  the  king  to  withdraw  the  troops 
from  Paris,  258 ;  changes  his  views,  295, 
296 ;  his  services  accepted  by  the  court, 
301;  denounced  by  tho  Jacobin  club,  303; 
interviews  the  queen,  and  is  pleased 
with  her,  305,  306 ;  interviews  the  Count 
de  la  Marck,  306,  307 ;  great  difficulty  in 
managing,  312;  retires  from  office,  316; 
stands  by  the  qneen,  324;  death  of,  334; 
funeral  of,  338. 

Mob  at  Versailles,  278-280. 

Moleville,  M.  Bertrand  de,  372,  373,  378, 
411. 

Monnier,  Countess  de,  and  the  Count  de 
Mirabeau,  253,  254. 

Montesquieu,  Marquis  de,  206. 

Montgoltter's  balloons  introduced,  208. 

Montme'dy,  327. 

Moutmorency,  Viscount  Matthieu  de,  305. 


INDEX. 


471 


Montmorin,  M.,  316, 355. 

Montsaberl,  M.,  arrest  of,  232,  233. 

Moreau,  M.,  2S1. 

Mothe,  Conntess  de  la,  215-221, 323. 

Harder  of  Mandat,  419 ;  of  the  Princess 

de  Lamballe,  436. 
Music,  great  taste  for,  exhibited  by  the 

danphiness,  65. 
Mutiny  iu  the  Marquis  de  Bouille's  army, 

310. 
Mutual  jealousies  of  the  queen's  favorites, 

141. 
Mysore,  Tippoo  Sahib,  sultan  of,  377. 

NARBONNE,  Count  de,  373. 

"  National  Assembly,"  the,  first  proposed, 
252. 

National  Guard,  formation  of  the,  265; 
fires  on  the  people,  353. 

Necker,  M.,  163, 164, 166 ;  retires  from  the 
ministry,  174 ;  invited  to  rejoin,  and  de- 
clines, 234-236 ;  appointed  prime  minis- 
ter, 236,  237;  aims  at  popularity,  245; 
convokes  the  States -general,  247-250; 
resumes  office,  270. 

Necklace  made  by  Boehmer,  the  court 
jeweler,  214-221;  story  of  the,  revived, 
323,  324,  389. 

Noailles,  Conntess  de,  45. 

Normandy,  Duke  of,  212. 

Notables,  the  Calonne,  assembles,  227; 
Lomenie  de  Brienue  dismisses,  230. 

Notre  Dame,  public  thanksgiving  at,  on 
account  of  the  birth  of  Madame  Royale, 
158 ;  also  on  the  occasion  of  the  birth 
of  the  dauphin,  182. 

OLIVA,  Mademoiselle,  and  the  great  neck- 
lace forgery  case,  217-219. 

Opera  of  "  Iphige'nie  en  Aulide  "  perform- 
ed in  Paris,  109, 136. 

Opinion  of  foreign  nations,  355. 

Outrages  in  the  provinces  in  1789,  270. 

Overthrow  of  the  Girondins,  449. 

PARIS  DITVKRNEY,  202. 

Paris,  fire-work  explosion  at,  39, 40 ;  state 
entrance  of  the  dauphin  and  Marie  An- 
toinette into,  77  -  80 ;  great  scarcity  in, 
September,  1789,  274 ;  riots  in,  238 ;  and 
the  Reveillon  riot,  247,  248,  261 ;  riots 
in,  July,  1789, 259 ;  the  court  removes  to, 
284;  insurrection  in,  June  20th,  1792, 
395-404;  riots  in,  August  5th,  1792,  416 
rt  .-"•/. 

Parliament,  violence  of  the,  231-233;  ar- 
rest of  two  of  its  members,  233 ;  clos- 


ing-Tip of,  by  the  king's  order,  233;  re- 
call of,  by  Necker,  238. 

Pastoret,  M.,  371. 

Paul,  Orand  Duke  of  Russia,  visits  the 
French  court  with  his  wife,  187-191. 

Peace  restored  between  Prussia  and  Aus- 
tria, 161 ;  between  France  and  England, 
195. 

Peasant,  the,  at  Fontainebleau,  40. 

People's  Friend,  The,  a  newspaper  publish- 
ed by  the  Revolutionists,  314. 

P6tion,  M.,  349,  355,  370,  376,  449. 

Pilniu,  declaration  of,  364. 

Poland,  the  partition  of,  75. 

Polastron,  Madame  de,  379. 

Polignac,  Countess  de,  122,  141,  184,  227, 
228,264. 

Political  clubs  springing  up  in  Paris,  245. 

Poll-tax,  exemptions  from,  made  by  Louis 
XVI.,  182. 

Popularity  of  Marie  Antoinette,  Increas- 
ing, 48,  49. 

Prince  Charles  of  Lorraine,  death  of,  169 ; 
de  Conti,  264 ;  de  Lichtenstein  sent  as 
envoy  from  Austria,  313, 314 ;  Ferdinand 
of  Brunswick,  142;  Eaunitz,  166,  387; 
Cardinal  Louis  de  Rohan,  29,  189,  190, 
215-222. 

Princess  Adelaide,  66-68, 89 ;  Clotilde,  117 ; 
de  Gnimenee.  127, 141, 178, 184;  de  Lam- 
balle, 122,  141,  160,  272,  436 ;  Josephine 
Louise  of  Savoy,  60 ;  of  Lorraine,  38 ; 
Sophie  of  France,  226 ;  of  Tescheu,  224 ; 
Victoire,  330. 

Private  theatricals,  168. 

Provence,  Count  de,  married  to  the  Prin- 
cess Josephine  Louise  of  Savoy,  60,  67, 
70,  71, 97, 143, 144, 157, 176,  379. 

Provence,  Countess  de,  160. 

Provinces,  outrages  in  the,  270,  310. 

Prussia  allies  with  Russia,  153;  and  the 
declaration  of  Pilnitz,  364. 

Public  thanksgiving  at  the  birth  of  Ma- 
dame Royale,  158 ;  at  the  birth  of  the 
dauphin,  181, 182. 

RACE -COURSE  established  in  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne,  119. 

Ramond,  M.,  408. 

Red  cap  of  liberty  worn,  388. 

Reform,  the  necessity  of,  generally  admit- 
ted, 241-244;  granted  by  Louis  XVI., 
256. 

Rejoicings,  general,  in  France  at  the  birth 
of  the  princess,  157;  at  the  birth  of  the 
dauphin,  179. 

Republic  declared,  437. 


472 


I  \HKX. 


"Restorer  of  French  Liberty,"  title  given 
to  the  king,  273. 

Retaux  de  Villette,  221. 

Retrenchment  in  court  expenditure,  166. 

Reveillon,  M.,  and  the  Paris  riot,  247,  248. 

Revolution  of  1789  commenced,  257. 

Revolutionary  tribunal,  435  et  aeq. ;  trial 
of  the  queen,  455. 

Rheims,  coronation  of  Louis  XVI.  at,  114. 

Richelieu,  Due  de,  85,  86. 

Ride,  Marie  Antoinette  expresses  a  wish 
to  learn  to,  49  ;  donkey-riding,  50. 

Riding,  donkey,  50;  horse,  63. 

Riots,  formidable  in  some  of  the  prov- 
inces, 234  ;  in  Paris,  238 ;  the  Reveillon, 
in  Paris,  247,  248 ;  in  Paris,  July,  1789, 
259 ;  in  Paris,  June  20th,  1792,  395-404 ; 
in  Paris,  August  5th,  1792,  416  et  aeq. 

Robespierre,  M.,  353,  355,  356. 

Rochambeau,  Marshal,  381. 

Roche-Aymer,  Count  de,  85. 

Rodney,  Admiral,  165, 192. 

Roederer,  M.,  397,  418, 421  et  seq. 

Rohan,  Cardinal  Prince  de,  29,  189,  190, 
215-222. 

Roland,  Madame,  urging  secret  assassina- 
tion of  the  king  and  queen,  259,  260 ;  and 
Robespierre,  353,  370,  371, 384, 385 ;  death 
of,  449. 

Romeuf,  M.,  347,  348. 

"  Rose  of  the  North,"  a  name  given  to  the 
Countess  de  Fersen,  173. 

Roseuburg,  Count  de,  120. 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  168. 

Royal  family,  the,  preparing  to  escape, 
341-346;  arrested,  346;  authority  sus- 
pended, 427,  428. 

Royalists,  the  name  first  used  as  a  re- 
proach, 238. 

Russia  allies  with  Prussia,  153;  Grand 
Dake  of,  visits  the  French  court,  187-191 ; 
Catherine  Empress  of,  365,  366. 

S  A  BRAN,  Abbe"  de,  89. 

Sahib,  Tippoo,  Sultan  of  Mysore,  377. 

Salis,  M.  de,  425,  426. 

Sans-cnlottes,  383. 

Santerrc,  M.,  and  the  attack  on  the  Bas- 

tile,  262 ;  and  the  Paris  insurrection, 

401^403  ;  and  the  insurgents,  421-423. 
Sartines,  M.  de,  192. 
Savonteres,  Marquis  de,  279. 
Scarcity  of  food  in  Paris  in  September, 

1789, 274. 

Schonbrnnn,  retreat  at,  21. 
Seine,  water-parties    on    the,  126,   127; 

frozen  over,  238. 


Seven  Years'  War,  the,  142. 

Severity  of  the  winter  of  1788-'89  much  felt 
in  France,  238-240. 

Seville,  the  Barber  of,  the  play  of,  203. 

S6ze,  M.  de,  439. 

Sieyus,  Abb6,  386. 

Simolin,  M.,  335. 

Simon,  M.,  and  the  young  king,  450  et  seq. 

Sir  Edward  Hughes,  192, 193. 

Sledging-parties,  53, 54. 

Small -pox  caught  by  Louis  XV.,  85; 
caught  by  Madame  Adelaide,  89. 

Snow  pyramids  and  obelisks  erected,  and 
inscriptions  mad?  on  them  showing  the 
French  people's  gratitude  for  the  char- 
ity displayed  by  the  queen  in  the  winter 
of  1788-'89,  239. 

Soissons,  30. 

Songs  of  the  Dames  de  la  Halle  on  the  oc- 
casion of  the  birth  of  the  dauphin,  180. 

Sophie  Hel6ne  Beatrice,  Princess,  born 
July  9th,  1786,  died  June  9th,  1787,  226. 

Sovereign  of  France,  arbitrary  powers  of 
the,  243. 

Spain  and  France  form  an  alliance  against 
the  British,  162. 

Spanish  squadron  destroyed  by  the  Brit- 
ish, 165. 

St.  Anthony's  Day,  74. 

St.  Cloud,  visit  of  the  dauphin  and  dau- 
phiness  to,  SI ;  purchased  for  the  queen, 
210. 

St.  Huruge,  Marquis  de,  397. 

St.  Priest,  Count  de,  278. 

St.  Targeau,  M.  de,  305. 

St.  Menehould,  the  king  recognized  at, 
while  escaping  from  France,  345. 

Staol,  Baroness  de,  at  the  opening  of  the 
States,  253  ;  and  the  queen's  last  days, 
453  et  seq. 

States-general,  need  for  a  meeting  of  the, 
240-246 ;  opening  of  the,  by  Louis  XVI., 
May  5th,  1789,  250-252 ;  uproar  in,  256- 
258. 

Statue  of  Louis  XIV.,  by  the  Due  de  la 
Feuillade,  304. 

Stedingk,  Count  de,  172, 178. 

Stormont,  Lord,  72. 

Strasburg,  reception  at,  29. 

Strausse,  M.,  347. 

Successes  of  the  English  in  America,  169. 

Suffrein,  Bailli  de,  fights  with  Sir  K 
Hughes,  192, 193. 

Sultan  of  Mysore,  377. 

Supper-parties,  court,  102. 

Sutherland,  Lady,  supplies  clothes  for  the 
dauphin,  433. 


INDEX. 


473 


Sweden,  Gnstavns  III.,  King  of,  at  the 

French  court,  207-209 ;  assassination  of 

the  King  of,  382. 
Swedish  nobles  received  at  the  French 

court,  172. 
Swiss  Guard,  under  Count  d'Hervilly,  398, 

425 ;  murder  of  the,  426, 427. 

TABOUBEAU  i>r.s  BEAUX,  M.,  175. 
Talleyrand,  Bishop  of  Autun,  308. 
Turouka's,  Duke  of,  wager,  20,  21. 
Taxes  imposed  on  the  accession  of  a  king 

and  queen  renounced,  95. 
Tea,  introduction  of,  into  France,  119. 
Temple,  the,  431  et  seq. 
Teresa,  Maria.    See  Maria  Teresa. 
Tertre,  Duport  de,  316. 
Teschen,  peace  of,  148 ;  Princess  of,  visits 

her  sister,  the  queen,  in  1786,  224. 
Thanksgiving,  public,  at  the  Cathedral  of 

Notre  Dame,  158, 181, 182. 
"The  Handsome,"  a  name  given  to  the 

Count  Axel  de  Fersen,  173. 
Theatre,  tumult  at  the,  367. 
Theatres,  the   dauphin  and  dauphiness 

visiting  the  Parisian,  81. 
Theatricals,  private,  168. 
Tison,  Madame,  and  the  queen,  450  et  seq. 
Titles  of  honor,  abolition  of,  305. 
Tocqneville's,  M.  Alexis  de,  opinion  of  the 

feudal  system  in  France,  242. 
Toulan,  M.,  and  Marie  Antoinette,  442. 
Toulouse,  Lomenie  de  Brienne,  Archbish- 
op of,  194. 
Tonrzel,  Marchioness  de,  267-269;    the 

queen  write?,  intrusting  her  children  to 

the  care  of,  268,  269 :  assumes  the  name 

of  Madame  de  Korff,  342. 
Trial  of  Cardinal  de  Rohan  and  others  for 

forgery,  218-222 ;  of  the  king,  December 

llth,  1792,  438  et  seq. 
Trianon,  Little,  pavilion  of  the,  given  to 

the  queen,  98, 99 ;  the  queen  at  the,  115 ; 

parties  at  the,  143  ;  festivities  at  the,  189 ; 

the  queen  improving  the,  208. 
Tricolor  flag  adopted  in  Paris,  261. 
Tronchet,  M.,  439. 
Tuileries,  shabbiness  of  the,  and  removal 

of  the  court  to  the,  2S6. 


Turgot,  A.  R.  J.,  107 ;  dismissal  from  of- 
fice, 123-125. 
Turgy,  M.,  444. 

USAGES,  French  and  Austrian,  104, 105. 

VALENCIENNES,  a  frontier  town,  326,  327. 

Valory,  M.,  344-346. 

Vareunes,  the  king  is  arrested  at,  in  his 
flight  from  Paris,  346. 

Varicourt,  M.  de,  281. 

Vaudreuil,  Count  de,  122, 123,  205. 

Vaudreuil,  Marquis  de,  282. 

Vauguyon,  Due  de  la,  24, 25,  43, 47,  200. 

Vergennes,  Count  de,  96,  200-207. 

Vergniaud,  M.,  370,  376, 384. 

Vermond,  Abbe  de,  22, 47, 43. 

Versailles,  Marie  Antoinette  and  Louis 
married  at,  May  16th,  1770, 32 ;  less  fre- 
quented, 130 ;  winter  of  1779,  167,  168, 
279,  284. 

Veto,  debates  on  the,  273;  "Monsieur" 
and  "Madame,"  nicknames  to  the  king 
and  queen,  395-397. 

Victoire,  Princess,  330. 

Vienna,  Marie  Antoinette,  leaving,  April 
26th,  1770,  26. 

ViUe  de  Paris,  ship,  216. 

Villette,  Marquis  de,  439. 

Vincennes,  castle  at,  attacked  by  the  mob, 
331. 

Violence  of  the  Parliament,  231-233. 

Viscount  Matthieu  de  Montmorency,  305. 

Volatile  character  of  the  queen,  132. 

Voltaire's  remark  about  the  maritime  su- 
periority of  England,  146;  return  to 
France,  and  his  death,  152, 153. 

WALPOLE'B,  HORAOR,  observations  on  the 

beauty  of  the  queen,  117. 
War  of  the  Grains,  113 ;  the  Seven  Years', 

142;   the  American,  145-147;   between 

France    and   England,  153 ;    declared 

against  Austria,  337. 
Water-parties  on  the  Seine,  126, 127. 
West  Indies,  French  successes  in  the,  163. 
Winter  of  17S3,  severity  of,  195 ;  of  1788- 

'89,  much  distress  in  France  in  the,  238- 

240. 


THE    END. 


